Encaustic Art Wax Blocks
These purpose made encaustic art wax blocks are made to the highest standards possible and are designed to be safe to use by anyone. The pigments are as light-fast as possible yet still meet the strict toxic controls demanded and implemented in the USA. They are labelled with the CL health label (caution label) which means that the waxes are safe in content but care needs to be observed when using them with the heated tools, simply because these heated implements might inflict light burns if carelessly handled. The waxes themselves are considered and tested as safe.

The encaustic Art Wax Blocks come in 48 colours with most of the darker hues tending to give a thicker & more viscous consistency when molten ( around 65 degrees Celsius). The lighter colours tend to be more liquid although this is not a strict characteristic. These alternative viscosities within the range allow for interesting interaction between the differing waxes. Pleasing and effective combinations are easily discovered. All colours are totally intermixable. These waxes can be polished when the artwork is finished or they can be varnished over with the wax sealer which will keep their sheen (stops blooming of the wax) and also affords protection from light abrasions e.g. finger marks. Generally, unless it is necessary , it is better to leave the encaustic art waxes in a polished state rather than to seal them. This allows future work to be done and also allows furhter polishing through time. The pure wax surface is probably far more durable than the acrylic sealer that is often used to varnish over for greetings card artworks, etc.
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Classic Recipe
The "classic" recipe for making your own encaustic wax is to melt together 85% beeswax with 15% damar resin. This will result in a strong and quite tough wax medium into which you can gently mill / blend your chosen pigments. Caution: Some pigments are very toxic, especially by accumulation through breathing in their dust. BE CAREFUL and wear a mask if in doubt! The less refined the beeswax the less uniform the resultant wax medium. This is largely due to the natural oils within raw beeswax that can affect the surface tension of the molten wax. This can cause blotchy areas and varying viscosity within even a single batch of wax.

Some people prefer to add Carnauba wax (a natural plant leaf product) to the beeswax in place of the damar. This produces a wax that will polish well but is more brittle than the damar formula. Carnauba wax melts at around 80 degrees Celsius and is brittle. It has the effect of helping to raise the melting point of beeswax (around 62 degreesCelsiuss) to a higher level - a desirable improvement for a wax paint medium. Carnauba wax also polishes to a high sheen.

Recipes therefore vary, but a combination of bleached (refined) beeswax, damar resin and / or carnauba wax seems to be the most common mix. Some people add micro crystaline waxes as well. These can be obtained at various melt points adn also varying hardness, so the character of a rusultant wax can be natured toward a more specific set of qualities.

The process is easiest if some of the beeswax is first melted, usually in a metal container either over a very controlled heat source (hotplate) or a double boiler where the water in the central space avoids overheating past its own boiling point (100C). An open flame is not advisable. Electric cooking rings are able to get very hot, too hot, so again, unless you wish to risk overheating, smoking and even flammable dangers then stay with low heat adn heat limited options.

Once the beeswax is molten then the damar resin crystals can be added, but it is best to make these as small as possible by crushing first.
To CRUSH place the crystals in a strong plastic bag then cover this with a cloth and place on a solid robust surface. Either use a wooden mallet or even a wooden rolling pin end to smash down on the underlying crystals to shatter them. Same thing with the carnauba, which is very brittle anyway and will shatter into shards quickly.
Slowly blend in the crushed ingredients, stirring at times to help them dissolve. Add more wax and continue in this manner until all is molten together. Then stir and pour out into moulds to create sensibly sized pieces for future remelting and for blending in with colours.

Colouring options are really to use dry pigment or pigments already in oil (oil paints). The latter will introduce some oil into the final encaustic wax blend, so in pure encaustic this is not something seen as desirable. It is not "wrong" but does seem to defeat the primary idea of using heat as a solvent. Oil will also soften the final wax to some degree, even if that is a very slight affect it is still involving another medium type unecessarily.

To blend in the pigment for production a useful volume of wax paint some molten encaustic wax medium needs to be melted in a heated metal container. If the container has a flat bottom then it makes it easier to mill in the dry pigment carefully and a little at a time. For instance, on a hotplate a flat bottomed baking tin can be used to hold the molten wax, then dry pigment that has been milled as fine as possible is added and stirred in. A large flat domestic cooking pallet knife is a good tool to mash the pigment and wax together on the flat bottom of the baking tin, using strokes that press down adn spread sideways, a bit like spreading butter onto bread. This will ensure that al the particles in the pigment get "wetted" and become contacted by the molten wax. The better this process is done then the more even the consistency of your final wax paint. The coloured encaustic wax can then be poured out into molds to cool and be used in the future or it can just be used there and then.

Small amounts of any colour can be made by melting some medium on a hotplate adn then working in a little pigment - even by dabbing the waxed brush head into a pot of dry pigment, then coming back to the hotplate and working it into the wax until it reaches the right consistency.

Of course a hotplate is an ideal mixing place that keeps the wax molten adn can also be used to lay your tool on top of so that they too remain ready warmed for instant use.
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Wax Emulsion
Beeswax can also be formed into an emulsion for a cold application liquid medium. Visit the website of Jeff Bryant for lots of information, recipes, advice and examples of his wax tempera paintings. http://wax-egg-oil.port5.com
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