In my experience, if you USE A RIGID SUPORT, there is no problem with the brittleness of paraffin wax paintings. I have not yet observed any cracking of paraffin wax layers in any of my work. I also recommend that you frame encaustic pictures quickly to help both fix and protect them against cracking. Sometimes small repairs with a hot iron are necessary after the framing.

Using natural yellow beeswax  has a specific charm. I love the smell and it harmonizes colours added to it into a warm tone. It is especially suitable to create a huge scale of warm hues of brown, red and yellow. On the contrary, colourless paraffin wax with its brilliancy is much better suited for cold colour scales (see the contrast in "Biblical landscape").

Recently I found an excellent and very cheap alternative of commercial encaustic waxes – usual wax crayons for children. They can be used in a similar way as the commercial encaustic colours.

At the beginning of my encaustic experiments I had a tendency to use molten wax medium in similar ways to oil colours in oil painting. Sitting the time I was once in a Prague pub and sat looking at a table candle-stick covered with thick layers of paraffin waxes of different colours, I got an inspiration on how to paint with wax in freer style – to use the very specific charm of  the fused layers of differently coloured waxes !  Since that time I have almost totally avoided using brushes and I use a spoon more and more to mix molten waxes directly onto a painting support, also employing the encaustic iron and stylus from Michael Bossom. I was surprised how detailed painting can be done using only the iron !  I also use very thick layers and rich semirelief textures. It gives the encaustic paintings a specific and inimitable charm.

Moreover, hot molten waxes of different colours, when they are mixed together, are an excellent medium to form different natural fractal patterns. Typical fractal patterns can also be created with a mildly heated iron. I love to play with them ! I try to incorporate the natural fractal pattern into my paintings. The fractal patterns can be used to create clouds (that also have fractal structure in reality), in abstract painting and so on.

Blue House: an example of iron painting. The landscape was painted with the encaustic iron, apart from the house and clouds.

The House was painted with ordinary brushes and the encaustic iron whilst the clouds were created by pouring molten waxes using a teaspoon. Many different kinds of  wax were used in the painting.