Encaustics Part 2: Making Encaustic Medium

See step 1: Tools you will need

When you start in encaustics the first thing you need is Medium. This will be your base, Vehicle, whatever you want to call it. you can start out by buying the medium instead of making it if you find this process intimidating, or if you are unsure if you want to carry on in encaustics. R&F has a great line of encaustic supplies. If you plan to do a lot of painting, the cost will add up. you will go through a lot of medium in encaustics, so its cheaper to make your own medium in bulk. R&F is pretty pricey.

Please be advised, if overheated beeswax and resin can produce toxic fumes. take care not to ever let your mixtures get over 225 degrees. Wax melts at a fairly low temperature, and resin melts at 200 usually. so keep it lower rather than higher.

if you are using the technique of painting I use, you will use a lot of this Medium. I mix my colours as I need, and then save the pucks of colour if I have any left over. I can remelt later if I need that colour again. I can add more or less medium to change the transparency if I want. If you are using the technique of painting with the actual Iron, you will need to pre make the colours in pucks. I'll mention the stage you would do that in.

Lets get started.
First thing you should do is prepare your materials.

Gather your tools: a double boiler (or a mask shift one. I used a camping pot in a frying pan with water in it.), your muffin tin or liners to mold your medium pucks (cakes), a mortar and pestle, or baggies and a hammer (to crush your resin), your beeswax, your resin crystals, your scale, your spoon/ladle, thermometer, and hotplate or stove.

Measure out your amounts of wax to resin. You need to think about the ratio you want. 8:1 ration wax to resin is good (I part resin to 8 parts wax), but this is totally personal. the more resin the harder your wax will be, the less resin, the softer. work with what works for you. I wont go into actual measurements here, because I just eyeballed mine really... :p

Resin: you need to crush your resin into a fine powder. you can do this a couple ways, in a bag with a hammer. I suggest covering it with a towel to avoid dust flying, because you'll hammer the heck outta the bag its in. you need to crush it as fine as you can. the white powdery part is ideal. the big rocks here are going to have you over a stove for 3 hours melting it... make it fine like a dust. Resin take a while to melt, do anything you can to help it along.






Wax: I used beeswax from The honeybee Centre for my medium today. I got a big 15lb bag of it, chipped from a huge block. I liked it chipped off because it was easier to deal with. I have big blocks right now that are just too laborious to spend the time breaking apart. HAHA! my wax was a rich yellow. I adore it.

You start by melting this in your double boiler. Set the heat to a medium temperature. As you can see in my picture, I wrapped my frying pan part of my double boiler in tin foil. I don't remember my reasoning. but it sure made it look rugged. The pot the wax is in, is a camping pot. The handle gets hot. Take care not to burn yourself obviously.




You can see from this next picture, the wax is a warm rich yellow. I love this part of the beeswax, but if you want to have a white base then you can use filtered wax that has had the coloured pollen removed. Different places that make beeswax will have different colours from bright golden yellow, to dark almost brown. This has to do with the pollen in the wax. Different regions have different plants that the pollen comes in. It's awesome!
Anyways, Melt your wax until its completely liquid.




Once the wax is completely melted, you can add in your resin. I'm impatient and didn't crush my resin well enough so mines all lumpy and took ages to melt, so don't skimp on the crushing. here is the resin in the wax. It will be sticky. remember, its tree resin AKA, SAP... It will become sappy and sticky. just stir stir stir and give it time to melt. Keep the temperature around 200 degrees, but never over 250 degrees. Don't rush, you'll just burn it.






Soon it will be all melted. See, it looks like melted wax, but the resin is adding the properties you need. more brittleness, and polish ability, and less oxidization.

If you need to add more water to your double boiler, heat it up first so you don't drop your temperature. It will make it take longer.






Once you have your medium all melted together, ladle it into your moulds or pour it in. I used these handy little silicone muffin 'papers' for mine. they keep their shape. but don't over fill. 2/3rd is best. these ones were bunched together so they were all funny shaped LOL!
As the cakes or Pucks cool, they will turn lighter and opaque.
make sure you peel them out of the cups only if they are fully set. you don't want to get burned by shoving your finger in a half molten cake. If you are wanting to make pre pigmented blocks, you would add the colour in the mold when its still molten. stir it up to mix in the colour and let it set.





Once its hardened I like to heat a knife, and carve an M into the top of it. This way I know it's a cake of Medium. If I have to break down my wax into pucks later, or I make a colour that's similar I don't want to mix them up.








Sometimes the resin will have some bits of tree in it. you will see this in the melting process, but don't let it concern you at all. once you pour the pucks into the moulds and it set,s the impurities will settle the the bottom. you can either carve the layer off, or your can melt it and wipe it off. either way, its easy to remove.








This is my pile of Pucks. They're a nice yellow colour, and they're solid and ready to use in painting. I compared it to the R&F encaustic medium I had, and its very similar, so I guess I did a good job in that :) mines just a bit yellower, which I like more.








The 3 pucks in the middle are some leftover R&F encaustic medium I had. the coloured pucks are my pigmented medium from a previous painting I had worked on. I just save my left over colours by letting them set in the mold and popping them out. I store them in the art bin.

And that is all there is to making your encaustic medium! Its fun to do.
Be careful of possible burns, and work in a well ventilated area, and all will be well.

Next blog will be Using your medium, and creating an encaustic painting :D stay tuned