A few weeks ago, I had a monotype workshop here at my studio in Carlsbad for a few students. Scheduling the class motivated me to move all my encaustic setup into my larger studio. The light is wonderful, it has lots of ventilation and the much need electrical outlets for all the heated palettes.
I really enjoyed the smallish class…just three students with varying degrees of art making experience. Encaustic was however, completely new to all of them.
I demonstrated the three fundamentals that control the outcome of a work: the temperature of the palette (optimal setting is 180 degrees), the amount of encaustic medium (damar resin and beeswax) and the type of paper used to pull the print. It always best to start with just a few colors–2 to 3 at the most. This will gives you the ability to experiment with how much medium you like to you coupled with the amount of pigment.
