R&F Handmade Paints

This past June at the 6^th Annual International Encaustic Conference in Provincetown, I had the opportunity to sit in on Richard’s session about the adhesive properties of different substances and their compatibility with encaustic paints and mediums.  There was an abundance of information about a variety of different materials and it was all pulled from real-world testing done here at R&F.   (Read more about testing here)   One thing that really struck me more than anything else is that it is not the binder that dictates whether or not a ground is suitable for encaustic - it is how you use it.

To be clear, very early on we were advising artists against the use of encaustic over acrylic mediums.   From 1988 (when Richard began advising artists) until 2007, that was perfectly sound advice.   We did not feel that the acrylic mediums and grounds that were on the market at that time had the porosity or “tooth” necessary for encaustic paint to reliably adhere to a substrate.   Then in 2008, after quite some time in development, we introduced our acrylic based “Encaustic Gesso”.  But how does this work?

Acrylic is bad, right?

Well, no.

Used properly, acrylic is a very reliable, and durable binder.  It has wonderful adhesive properties and flexibility. Carefully tweaked with some other materials, it is quite suitable for use with encaustic paint.  What I took away, more than anything else, from Richard’s presentation in June is that it is not about the binder.

Think of it this way: For years artists have quite successfully used traditional rabbit-skin glue gesso as a ground for encaustic.  Rabbit-skin glue by itself is a slick, non-porous, brittle medium.  On it’s own it is not a very good ground for encaustic.  When you combine it carefully with the right proportion of solid materials (titanium, chalk, etc) it becomes a very suitable ground for encaustic.  So, one more time:  it’s not about the binder.

The reason I feel confident about this (like all our products) is that we test them.  Again and again, until we feel confident about their performance.  Then we test them some more.

When we developed our Encaustic Gesso, (and later, when we worked with Ampersand to create Encausticbord) we wanted something that was absorbent and felt like watercolor paper but could be brushed on smooth and dry quickly with little effort.  We also wanted something that was not soluble with water after it dried since many artists combine encaustic with other media.  And we wanted a gesso that had excellent adhesion on all kinds of substrates and would be flexible and durable to withstand changes in the environment over very long periods of time.   After a lot of hard work and lots of testing we got all of these things.  And some acrylic.

Paintmaker Matt Kelly shares a day in the life at R&F making encaustic paint and Pigment Sticks:

There are a number of things about the Annual Conferences of Encaustic Painting at Montserrat College of Art that amaze me, and a good deal of the credit goes to its founder and director, the indomitable Joanne Mattera, who began building a network of painters back in 1999 with her book, The Art of Encaustic Painting. 
Joanne has kept the conference program broad enough to appeal to a wide range of interests, allowing the event to build upon itself each year.  This momentum is a reflection of the social nature of the current encaustic movement. So much of the development of contemporary encaustic has been community-driven – artists teaching themselves and each other. From this have sprung networks, conferences, retreats, exhibits, and collaborations.

Another thing that amazes me about the conferences is how much I myself learn. Here I am, involved in all areas of encaustic matters 364 days of the year (I take off Groundhog’s Day), and I still come across information about materials and methods that I did not know or was only vaguely familiar with.  For example, Roberta Bernstein’s excellent keynote talk on the work of Jasper Johns was both refreshing and enlightening. Johns’ great feat was to usher the medium into the modernist era.  He did this by concentrating on surface effects that had as much to do with his thematic concerns as the images themselves. Except for the use of Japanese kimono irons, his encaustic tools were simple everyday implements. Yet with these, as Dr. Bernstein showed with examples from major points in his career, he explored much of what is now standard encaustic vocabulary – collage, layering, and muted color surfaces.

Several of the sessions that I attended dealt with either materials or with social aspects of encaustic: Ask Dr. Wax, Inquiry into Soy Wax, Batik and Encaustic, and Creating an [encaustic] Organization.

John Dilsizian, dubbed Dr. Wax at the conference, has long been the technical mentor on wax. Here are some of the things he discussed:
·    Microcrystalline and paraffin waxes as substitutes for beeswax. Both microcrystallines and paraffins are derived from petroleum, and one of the problems of working with either is their tendency to turn yellow, due to residual oil in the refined wax.  Although blends of micros and paraffins can imitate some of the characteristics of beeswax, the long-term structural integrity is not known.  Blends of microcrystallines/paraffins/beeswax are linear. This means that if you combine waxes with the following approximate melting temperatures: 2 parts of a micro (170°F) with 1 part of a paraffin (140°F) and 4 parts of beeswax (145°F), you will get a wax with an average melting temperature of 151°F.  Blends of carnauba or resin with beeswax, however, are not linear but geometrical and their combined melting point has to be measured because it is not easily calculated.
·    Resin and beeswax. Some of the virtues of adding damar resin to the wax is that it retains heat and remains flexible for a longer time. It also adds to the adhesiveness of the wax. Its hardening effects on the wax are progressive over time and not entirely immediate.
·    Bleaching and blooming of beeswax. The best way to decolorize beeswax for artists’ use is by running the wax through filters. Using chemical bleaches can reverse over time; the wax retains some of the bleach, and is more likely to react with pigments.  However, not all crude waxes can be decolorized by filtering. Surprisingly, the greater the tendency of a beeswax to bloom, the easier it is to be decolorized by filtration.
·    Colony Collapse Disorder among bees is still of grave concern. There has been a larger count of bee deaths this last year than previously. Autopsies have shown a higher incidence of pesticides and virus. This is surprising and disturbing because each cause should be countering the other – if higher pesticide deaths, there should be lower virus deaths and visa versa. But this is not turning out to be the case. The mystery continues with potentially major consequences for our general food supply, honey production, and wax supply.

Barbara Walton has been conducting experiments with soy wax as an alternative to beeswax for encaustic with her colleague Dr. Toni Wang, a food scientist, at Iowa State University. The initial results of soy wax and damar resin proved too soft and dull, cracking occurred, and there was a lack of adhesion between layers. Later formulations were more successful. Still, this was an in-progress report of experiments that are continuing.

Regardless of whether or not they result in a useable soy wax-based encaustic, the mere effort to research this avenue is one more sign that encaustic is an open field with many possibilities still to be explored and discovered by the inquisitive.

Cat Crotchett’s talk on a collaboration she did with batik artisans in Indonesia gave another demonstration of the expanding encaustic community. The project began with a visit of batik artists to Western Michigan University who were fascinated to discover an artistic use of wax in which the wax remained as part of the image, rather than being used as a resist to produce a negative image. Grant money from arts and cultural organizations and a donation of paint from R&F funded a trip last summer to Yogyakarta, the major arts city in Java.

Many technical hurdles were overcome, such as the improvised use of the pans normally employed to heat the tjaps (copper pattern blocks). Available tools such as the traditional tjanting tools, torches, palette knives, and brushes were used. Fusing was often done simply by leaving the work in the sun.

Two sets of workshops were set up, one with batik artists, the other with fine arts painters, and their approaches were greatly different. One very interesting cultural difference emerged from the workshops. Painters here in the West tend to work individually, sharing palettes and their work space only when necessary. But the Indonesian artists worked communally, sharing palettes and work space out of custom.

Harriette Tsosie and Kim Bernard talked about the setting up their respective encaustic networks, The Encaustic Art Institute (formerly New Mexico Wax) and New England Wax. Each organization has between 60-70 members. New Mexico Wax merged earlier this year with the Encaustic Art Institute located in a spacious 2,400 sq. ft. building built by its founder, Douglas Mehrens, with the intention of being a national center for encaustic art. New England Wax was formed in 2006 and focuses on group participation through bi-monthly meetings, exhibits, and museum and gallery visits.

Listening to Kim and Harriette made me think once again about an anomaly in our encaustic world. It is striking how so many artists are drawn to encaustic, seek out other encaustic painters, form encaustic organizations, publish encaustic manuals and videos, set up encaustic exhibits, and attend encaustic events yet emphatically state that they are not encaustic painters but artists who happen to use encaustic.

In a sense, that’s what the encaustic networks are  about – a counter to the solo artist making her or his way in the gallery world in which encaustic becomes a vehicle for creative communal activities.  The EAI held an exhibit called “Dialectic” that partnered artists using encaustic with artists using other mediums. NEW collaborated with the International Encaustic Artists in the “Diptych Project,” in which an NEW member sent a finished piece along with a blank panel to the IEA member to complete as the second half of a diptych. In these activities is a sense of community, certainly grasped by the Indonesian artists whom Cat Crotchett encountered.

Interested in sampling colors or building your palette? Our new, smaller, 40ml  studio-size encaustic cakes offer a practical solution.  These heavily pigmented, ready-to-use paints are of the same quality that you know and love.  They are available in all of our 80 colors, along with our existing 104ml and 333ml sizes.

There are so many questions that keep popping up about the materials that we use, where they come from, and how they are processed.  When we talk about beeswax,  terms such as Pharmaceutical grade, bleaching, refined and filtered are commonly used.  This blog seeks to offer up the materials definitions that are most important to you.

Worker honeybee with wax scales from Beeswax: Production, Harvesting, Processing and Products by William Coggshall & Roger Morse, published by Wicwas Press, 1984.

Beeswax is secreted by wax glands in the bee’s abdominal area and used to create the honeycombs of the hive. Pure beeswax is composed solely of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Its natural color when it is secreted is white. When beeswax is harvested from the hive it is often contaminated with impurities, which discolor it. At this stage it is called unrefined or crude beeswax.

Crude Beeswax from Ethiopia

Unrefined or crude beeswax is colored in a range of earthy hues from yellow to black. This coloration is caused by pollen, propolis (resin), and dirt. If you use unrefined wax for its color, it is important not to assume that the color is permanent because the color  is organic matter, which is not necessarily stable in light and is subject to fading, darkening, or a color shift. (See below for variations of crude beeswax)

Crude Beeswax Domestic

Crude Beeswax from New Zealand

These are reasons why you would most likely want to use decolorized, white beeswax for encaustic. You may wonder how does the wax get whitened? Artist manufacturers avoid the term ”bleached beeswax” because it implies the use of chemical bleaches. But the wax industry uses the term for the mechanical as well as the chemical methods of decolorizing beeswax.

Chemical bleaching is not the best choice for artists for two reasons. For one, chemical bleaching (which uses either potassium permangenate & phosphoric acid or sulfuric acid or various peroxides) does not always mean removing the colorant. In many cases it simply masks it. It is often used to whiten colorants that non-chemical bleaching can’t, but these colorants can later return to their original color. Furthermore, chemical bleaching can be harsh on the wax, creating free fatty acids and making the wax more reactive to pigments and pollutants.

Sun bleached beeswax plant from The Chemistry and Technology of Waxes by Albin H. Warth, published by Reinhold Publishing Company, 1956.

Sun bleaching exposes the wax to the ultraviolet light of the sun, which breaks down the colorants. This is a gentle and effective method of decolorizing the wax. The process, however, is expensive on an industrial scale because it requires so much space, but it is also the most accessible method for artists who want to bleach their own wax on a small scale.

Filtration is a process in which the wax is forced under high pressure through filters of activated carbon and clay that absorb the colorants and take out all foreign matter. Filtration is preferable to chemical bleaching because it maintains the structural integrity of the wax. It is also, in the long run, the least expensive and the most practical of the three methods. It is the best choice for artist material.

Example of a Filter

Pharmaceutical grade beeswax is a standard set by the government that certifies that the wax meets certain chemical requirements and that it is pure beeswax. The chemical standards (such as its ability to be saponified) are of importance to the cosmetic and pharmaceutical use of beeswax. For the artist, the real importance of pharmaceutical grade beeswax is that it is a guarantee that the beeswax has not been adulterated with other waxes (such as paraffin or microcrystalline), rosins, stearic acid, or tallow. However, the term pharmaceutical grade does not refer to the method by which it has been decolorized. Artists should seek out wax that is both guaranteed 100% beeswax and filtered or sun bleached.

And, in case you’re wondering, R&F uses only pharmaceutical grade filtered beeswax.

This blog is an amplification of comments that I originally posted on www.AMIEN.org.

Earlier this month, Pamela Blum, and I attended the International Encaustic Artists retreat and conference in Carmel, CA.

The conference/retreat was held in the intimate setting of the Hidden Valley Music Seminars Institute . It was a vibrant program, exceptionally well put together by Cari Hernandez . Over 60 encaustic artists were there, coming from California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Texas, Arizona, Nebraska, Michigan, British Columbia and Ontario.

I gave a talk on the history of ancient Greek painters and how the development of naturalism during the Classical and Hellenistic periods of Greek art led to the flourishing of encaustic painting, reaching its apex during the Greco-Roman period with the masterful life-likeness of the Fayum funeral portraits.

Pamela’s interactive demonstration of working encaustic on 3-D surfaces was based on a series of work she did on curved blocks of wood. She showed fusing, scraping, and inlaying techniques and discussed how her use of encaustic applied to her themes of permanence and fragility.

Toronto-based Tony Scherman , was the keynote speaker. His large scale encaustic portraits based on historical personages and philosophical concepts are widely known in Canada and Europe. He has been a major representative of encaustic painting there for nearly 30 years. Although less known in the U.S., his reputation here has grown greatly in recent years.

Left: Tony Sherman speaking at the retreat  Right: "About 1789: Albert Speer,” encaustic/canvas

Scherman’s presentation was a lively talk that went deep into the influences and aesthetic choices in his paintings. His preference for encaustic developed in his early years from his desire to achieve a watercolor like lucidity in his paint. For him encaustic leaves an openness in the pictorial representation as opposed to a sense of finality that he finds in other less-luminous paints.

A panel discussion moderated by Cari included art consultants Josetta Sbeglia and Helene Brown along with Tony, Pamela, and me. The diversity of opinions resulted in some sparkling exchanges on definitions. Tony’s technique differs from more commonly used methods of encaustic so the question of what is encaustic came up. Another was the relationship of the artist to her/his work.

A number of IEA members gave short demonstrations of their techniques. It’s amazing, no matter how many times you see someone’s process, there’s always something new that you never thought of. To name a few – Linda Womack’s use of shellac and encaustic, Gretchen Papka ’s use of parchment for image transfer, and Kimberly Kent’s portable encaustic palette.

On Saturday night there was an art exchange of work that each person had brought. This was truly impressive because much of the work went beyond mere technique and showed the mature mastering of the medium on a much broader basis that is coming to represent encaustic painting today.

It’s hard to believe that even 10 years ago, an encaustic event was a rare thing. Now there are conferences like this on the West Coast and the Annual Encaustic Painting Conference at Monserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA. Classes are being taught everywhere, and a growing number of encaustic networks – Tucson, Florida, Atlanta, and Chicago have recently formed – are bringing artists together to share ideas and collaborate on work. A good example is the Diptych Project between IEA and New England Wax that was exhibited at the 2008 Montserrat Conference. The project had artists on one coast send one part of a diptych to a randomly selected artist on another coast to complete the work. This year IEA has upped the ante by announcing a Triptych Project.

The inventiveness seems endless.

Photos of conference: Paula Fava

Leslie Giuliani "EVOLUTION"

Jerry’s Artarama in CT will host an Encaustic and Pigment Stick demonstration on Saturday October 17th from 1-4pm.  Artist Leslie Giuliani will be on hand to teach you techniques and answer your questions.  Contact Jerry’s Artarama at 1-860-232-0073 for more information.   

About the Artist:  “When people view my work they are surprised by its individuality.  That the work represents a unique voice is very important to me.  The work is intriguing in many different ways: the structure- how it’s shaped and built; the imagery- light hearted and darkly primal simultaneously; texture- use of a variety of materials; the interplay of color; and good design.  This way as people look deeply into the work it changes with each viewing- the piece evolves, never settling into one specific interpretation- a work that invites visit after visit.”

Encaustic, the most permanent of all artists paints, has a future that we hold in our hands.  Its permanence is limited by the delicate environmental balance that is crucial for the honey bee population.  The bee population is decreasing at an alarming rate.  For companies like R&F that rely on these little amazing creatures, it is obvious how much we would be effected if they were to vanish.

For companies like Haagen Daz, it is not so obvious.  Bees pollinate one-third of the food we eat, many of these foods are included in their ice creams.  They have created this great website to make people aware of the importance of bees.  Click here to take a look around the Haagen Daz Honeybee website.  You can find out what is happening and find out how to help.  In addition, August is National Honey Bee Awareness month.  To help celebrate, they have created a video, entitled “Do the Honey Bee Dance“, which is an interpretation of the honey bee waggle dance.  Honey bees use this dance to communicate to hivemates which direction they must fly to reach a food source. 

Lets do what we can to help spread the word.  It is up to us to ensure that the honey bees flourish.

Honeybee photograph courtesy of Abelisto.

Here are some pictures from a special collaboration R&F did with artists Debbie LeBlanc and Roosevelt Madison, two friends who took one of our regional workshops at Majestic Ranch in Texas with Gina Adams.  Debbie lives in Texas, and Roosevelt lives in Los Angeles, so they used the workshop as a way to spend creative time together.

Debbie and Roosevelt wanted to come and work on some larger projects in our facility at R&F, but had such a great rapport with Gina Adams that they brought her along to help them with the technical aspects of their work.  They did enormous poured wax panels which were very exciting to see, and got a massive amount of work done!  It was such a great experience for all involved that they are now planning to make an annual pilgrimage to R&F.

R&F has long carried two varieties of filtered beeswax; white and yellow.  This granulated beeswax can be purchased in bulk, for artists who are interested in making their own encaustic medium, or who wish to use the beeswax alone.
Our white beeswax is a light creamy off-white.  Our yellow beeswax has always been a slightly deeper pale yellow.  While there is certainly some difference between the two colors, we have decided to change our choice of yellow beeswax to a bolder, less pale variety.  R&F’s new yellow beeswax is a bright, golden yellow, that stands with distinction next to our soft, luminous white beeswax.
In processing this variety of yellow beeswax, crude beeswaxes are chosen which are known to produce a deeper color wax after filtering.  These waxes are then filtered in a way which removes the brown coloring agents in the beeswax, while leaving a percentage of the red colorants behind.  This yellow beeswax is a popular choice in the candle making industry, due to its warm, natural appearance.
We feel that this wax will give our customers more options when it comes to the color of their beeswax, because while the yellow wax can be used by itself, it can also be mixed with our white beeswax to give you a range of color options.