Backus Museum Best of the Best – Encaustic

I’m so excited that one of my pieces was juried into the Backus Museum Annual “Best of the Best” show.  Hundreds of entries were submitted and the jurors chose 125 pieces of varying media; watercolor, oils, jewelry, acrylic, pastels, and yes, encaustics!

This piece took quite a while to create and I wish you could see it in person.  I still have a hard time photographic encaustics.  To me, part of the beauty is the depth achieved by building layers upon layers.  There are places you can see through one layer down into the next and I become entranced looking at all the little hidden pieces within a beautiful encaustic.

I also use stencils quite a bit to work in my encaustic layers.  Sometimes you can see the original stenciled image and other times they all blend into the background.  And, of course, I’m using The Crafter’s Workshop stencils.  I love that they are thick enough I can use them with the hot wax.  If it’s a stencil I like to use a lot, I try to have two, one for encaustics and one for everything else.  However, I still use any of my stencils in my encaustic work.  I can let it completely cool and peel thicker wax off, or I can layer between paper towels or papers and use my encaustic iron to clean my stencils by melting the wax and allowing the paper to soak it up.  Some pigments will still stain a stencil as with many mediums, but it does not mess it up.

This piece has a gorgeous shine because I covered the entire piece with clear encaustic when done.  Many encaustics will create a ‘bloom’ over time due to the nature of the wax used.  When this ‘bloom’ gets a little cloudy, you use a clean bare hand or a soft cloth and buff the shine right back!  All of the colors you see used in this piece were encaustic pigments and it layers thick on an 18×24 cradleboard.  This piece is currently available for sell at the Backus Museum.