This month, I welcomed six remarkable artists into my Carlsbad studio for two days dedicated entirely to encaustic monotypes — a process that is equal parts technical awareness and creative surrender.
We started where I always do: safety. Working with hot palettes and molten wax demands respect and attention, and I want everyone to feel confident and comfortable before we even begin making marks. From there, we talked through the variables that make encaustic monotypes so fascinating — and sometimes unpredictable. Palette temperature is everything, ideally hovering between 180–185°F. Then there’s the paper, the balance of beeswax and damar resin in the medium, and the creative choice of how many pulls to make before the image says it’s finished.
After a demo of foundational techniques, the studio shifted into that quiet, focused energy I love — the sound of paper lifting, tools moving, small moments of discovery. I structure these workshops to allow as much uninterrupted working time as possible. For many artists, this is rare access. They don’t have hot palettes or encaustic setups waiting in their own studios. Watching them settle into the rhythm of the process, experiment, and surprise themselves is always the most rewarding part for me.
In my workshops, I provide all materials including encaustic, medium and a large variety of Japanese printmaking papers.
After lunch together in the garden — that welcome pause where conversations deepen and everyone resets — we returned to the studio and I demonstrated how to create multiple pulls from the palette. This is where the process really opens up. Multiple pulls give artists more freedom to push an image further, building depth, layering history, and developing the kind of complex textures that make encaustic monotypes so compelling. Watching that moment click, when artists realize how much latitude they actually have, is always exciting.
The second day always feels like an expansion, and this group leaned right into it. I introduced a wide range of media that can be layered and worked into the surface after the print is made — the stage where many pieces truly begin to resolve and find their voice.
We explored encaustic oil sticks, PanPastels, India ink, watercolor, and watercolor pencils. At this point, the prints stop feeling like single moments and start becoming conversations — layers of mark-making, editing, and discovery. It’s a mark-maker’s dream, and you can almost feel the shift in the room when artists realize just how far they can push their work.
Every group brings its own curiosity, courage, and creative voice. This one was no exception.
