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Recipes for Making Encaustic Wax Medium

Introduction Quick Basics Skillet Batch Basic Recipes
Encaustic paint needs to
contain wax & colour. The
quality of these
components & the way in
which ingredients interact
defines the final character
& behavior of the paint.
Heat is the solvent for the
encaustic medium on this
site, so no evaporating
solvents are needed nor
discussed here.
NOTE: In antiquity it is likely
that cold wax pastes were used
as well as heated wax colours..
 This section describes
some modern "home
studio" ways to melt and
make encaustic medium
using domestic hardware
or currently available
heated tools.

If a bulk amount of
medium is made first then
it is easy to remelt and add
colours to suit your needs
later.
* The red sub-index above
will take you to the related
pages quickly.
The simplest encaustic paint could be a basic mixture of beeswax and some pigment.
However, there are many other types of waxes, each with their own unique heat curve and
character. There are also resins that can be mixed with waxes to alter final working
qualities of hardness, melting point and flexibility. Pigments (and dyes) offer a multitude
of qualities apart from the colour they imbue. The particle size can change the flow
character quite dramatically for some application methods. There are many possibilities
in formulation. Up to Index
QUICK BASICS of MAKING ENCAUSTIC WAX MEDIUM

MAIN WAXES
...often used in encaustic medium
include: BEESWAX,
DAMAR RESIN,
MICRO Crystalline,
CARNAUBA
& PARAFFIN.

One"classic" recipe for making your own encaustic wax is to melt together 85% beeswax
with 15% damar resin. This will result in a strong and quite tough wax medium into which you
can gently mill / blend your chosen pigments. However, there are many waxes available and
different blend of formulation will yield many varieties of character in the encaustic medium. It
is not a fixed idea.
In essence making a heat soluble wax paint is simply a matter
of melting together the formulation's ingredients in the right
proportions and at a temperature that effects the mixing, but
does not exceed the safe zone in which the ingredients remain
at their best. Excess heat will damage some materials and
cause dangers of fuming and potentially even fire. Controlled
heat is vital and sensible ventilation is also a firm requirement.
Here is a simple small desktop mix for one colour. A hotplate
is the heat source and the working container is a stainless
steel measuring cup - like a small saucepan.

Ingredients: Beeswax, carnauba, damar resin, red

pigment.
The beeswax is measured into the heated cup which stands on
the hotplate.
This begins to melt and the smaller amount of carnauba is
added.

Once all that is molten the damar is also added and sat back
on the hotplate to melt.

Stir all the molten ingredients together ...

... then add an amount of pigment and stir this into the molten
wax.
 Pour it out into a mold and leave to cool.

De-mold the now cold an set wax colour piece and you have
some encaustic paint ready to use.

But let's look at the whole process in a little more detail in the
next part of this page where a "Skillet Batch" is made.

Up to Index
MIXING A SKILLET BATCH OF ENCAUSTIC WAX MEDIUM
This skillet is an electrically heated pan with a built in
thermostat controlling the maximum temperature : imperative
to avoid any over-heating.
Ingredients in this recipe are roughly measured in the cup
volumes as:

* 6 x refined beeswax
* 1 x damar resin with a little carnauba included in the cup
too
First plug in the skillet and set the temperature to a medium to
get it hot quickly.

Measure out the cup of damar resin crystals. Here we added

a little bit of carnauba wax into this cup to comply with our
chosen recipe. The carnauba is brittle and melts around 80C,
similar to the damar. However, it is a natural plant wax that
offers a very high polish shine, so can add a little of that
quality into the mixture. It also smells a lot better than damar
resin. The wooden mallet is to crush this stuff into a more
powdery form.
Place the cup full of damar / carnauba into a double plastic
bag, ready for the crushing to be done. This process enables
the damar to melt faster.

The plastic bags are to constrain the materials whilst they are
being smashed into finer pieces with the mallet. Some damage
will occur to the plastic bags as the sharp crystals pierce the
plastic.
So seal the bag, ready to crush ...

... then find a solid under board - here we used a piece of flat
scrap timber plank ...

... but wait, don't use the mallet yet or greater damage will
occur to the plastic and crystals or dust might scatter ...

... so we used an old tee-shirt as a buffer to soften the impact

and contain any dust that might escape.

Check the progress of the crushing every few strokes ...

... then when you are happy with the state of the damar /
carnauba particles stop and retain the ingredient until it is time
to add it to the molten wax.

Notice how the plastic bag has been damaged?

But the large hard crystals are now far smaller and will melt
more quickly into the final wax medium.

Beeswax can be natural (raw) or refined, where the impurities

have been removed. We are using refined white beeswax
bought in bulk sack quantity in pellet form. This is easy to
handle and easy to measure.

The skillet is warming up now, so the beeswax can be added.

We used 6 measures of beeswax and poured them straight into
the skillet.

Beeswax melts at around 62C (about 145F). Refining does not

alter this melt point.
In the next few minutes the beeswax melted. Stirring was not
strictly necessary but it did speed up the process a bit.

Now the crushed damar and carnauba measure is added.

Notice the slight dust (click on thumb for a bigger image).

Protect yourself with a mask if you are exposing your
breathing to any dusty conditions. Some materials, especially
some pigments, can be dangerous, so err on the side of
caution.
These harder materials also have a higher melt point at around
80C, so stirring help to mix them into the beeswax. They can
take a while to melt.

Notice how the damar is now a syrupy consistency. It is not

easily melting into the liquid beeswax because the skillet
temperature is just a little on the low side.

The damar and carnauba need things a little hotter to turn into
their liquid forms.

So up the temperature a bit, but not too much. Better to take a

while longer for things to melt than force the ingredients
through too high a temperature.

If things get too hot fumes will rise from the mixture.
Overheating is dangerous!
As the temperature rises so the stubborn crystal shards melt
into the liquid mixture.
All those bits of woody looking stuff are from the damar resin
that we used. It is a natural tree resin and this batch turned out
to be quite polluted with small woody dross.

Once everything is molten check that the temperature is as

low as will hold the liquid form of this wax medium.

Notice now how the syrupy damar has become liquefied and
fluid.

Stir all the ingredients together so that they are thoroughly

blended.

The encaustic wax medium is now ready to be poured into the

final molds.

These molds (on left) are actually plastic food containers

used for carry out (take away) hot foods. They are designed to
withstand high domestic temperatures and are an ideal mold
for larger blocks of encaustic medium, especially as they
come with fitting lids that keep dust off during storage.
Carefully pour out the molten wax into the standing
containers. Some wax may dribble onto the surface, so ensure
that you have protected that with some disposable papers
before you start.

The wax will shrink very slightly as it cools, so fill the

containers to a reasonable level.
Pour the wax out carefully so that any dross or rubbish that
has been liberated during the melting process remains at the
bottom of the skillet.

Of course, if there is a lot of impurity in any of the ingredients

it will be difficult not to have some enter your molds.

Here is the unwanted dirt that came from the impure damar
resin.

Clean the skillet out whilst it is still warm using disposable

tissue.

The dirty tissues can then be thrown away and the skillet is
ready for another day.

The dirt is visible at the bottom of the mold. You may find
that your ingredients are pure and this issue does not arise -
that is the best way!

But if there are impurities then this is a way to deal with them
that normally work out well.

Notice that, just as in the skillet, the dirt has sunk to the
bottom.
So in effect it is only the bottom layer of wax that is holding
these impurities.

As the wax cools it begins to congeal and cloud back to its

solid colouration. This is the base colour of your new
encaustic medium. If we had used natural beeswax then
perhaps the overall colour would have been more yellowish.

Once the wax is congealed it can speed up the cooling up to

place the molds by a cool airstream like a window sill, tilting
the bottom up so air can get all around.
When totally cooled the wax should be quite easy to remove
from the molds. This shows that the adhesion to shiny plastics
is poor!

The top is perfectly clean encaustic wax medium, but the

bottom surface is contaminated with all the woody rubbish
from the impure damar crystals.
Breaking off a piece continues to show that the contamination
problem only exists in the very bottom level of the medium
block.

This can easily be dealt with now.

Use a knife blade to gently scrape off the thing dirty layer.

Pick out any slightly more embedded or larger pieces with the
knife tip.

After this scraping has been done all over the base the dirty
wax shavings can be discarded. In reality this is a very small
portion of the wax that has been made in this batch.

Without melting, it can be difficult to cut the thick encaustic

wax medium which is now a tougher product than the original
beeswax.

But a sharp hit with the mallet will do the trick. However,
remember the tee-shirt used when crushing the damar. This is
laid over the wax before striking with the mallet to save bits
flying all over the room!
Then the wax breaks into pieces that can be used to make
small amounts of differing colours etc.
 Finally, the natural state of our encaustic wax medium is
clear. Colour, hardness, melt-point, flexibility, smell,
polishing qualities and so on all become apparent. Each recipe
you develop can bring different qualities to your encaustic
medium.

It can be remelted at any future time to add pigment.

Next, find out about Adding Colour
Bigger batches can be achieved using commercial double
boilers, often used for heating water in catering situations.
These can have internal fitting containers (second from left)
that are protected from overheating by the surrounding water
in which it is immersed. More about this on the Equipment
page

* Just one thing; it is impossible to get the cold set encaustic

medium out!
You must decant or pour it out whilst in the molten state.

The process is exactly the same as in the skillet batch above,

except that quantities can be increased. This water jacket
double boiler is the safest way to heat wax as it is impossible
Up to Index for it to become dangerously hot - the water limits the
achievable temperature range to within safe levels.
SOME BASIC RECIPES TO GET STARTED MAKING ENCAUSTIC MEDIUM
Beeswax & Damar + Carnauba Wax Emulsion + Paraffins Punic Wax Alternatives
Ancient Approaches : http://www.dieter-
obrecht.info/encaustic/encaustic_ancient_techniques_1.htm
Beeswax & Damar
The "classic" recipe for making your own encaustic wax is to melt together 85% beeswax with
15% damar resin. This will result in a strong and quite tough wax medium into which you can
gently mill / blend your chosen pigments. Caution: Some pigments are very toxic, especially by
accumulation through breathing in their dust. BE CAREFUL and wear a mask if in doubt! The
less refined the beeswax the less uniform the resultant wax medium. This is largely due to the
natural oils within raw beeswax that can affect the surface tension of the molten wax. This can
cause blotchy areas and varying viscosity within even a single batch of wax.

Some people prefer to add Carnauba wax (a natural plant leaf product) to the beeswax in place
of the damar. This produces a wax that will polish well but is more brittle than the damar
formula. Carnauba wax melts at around 80 degrees Celsius and is brittle. It has the effect of
helping to raise the melting point of beeswax (around 62 degrees Celsius) to a higher level - a
desirable improvement for a wax paint medium. Carnauba wax also polishes to a high sheen.

Recipes therefore vary, but a combination of bleached (refined) beeswax, damar resin and / or
carnauba wax seems to be the most common mix. Some people add micro crystalline waxes as
well. These can be obtained at various melt points and also varying hardness, so the character of
a resultant wax can be natured toward a more specific set of qualities.

The process is easiest if some of the beeswax is first melted, usually in a metal container either
over a very controlled heat source (hotplate) or a double boiler where the water in the central
space avoids overheating past its own boiling point (100C). An open flame is not advisable.
Electric cooking rings are able to get very hot, too hot, so again, unless you wish to risk
overheating, smoking and even flammable dangers then stay with low heat and heat limited
options.

Once the beeswax is molten then the damar resin crystals can be added, but it is best to make
these as small as possible by crushing first.
To CRUSH place the crystals in a strong plastic bag then cover this with a cloth and place on a
solid robust surface. Either use a wooden mallet or even a wooden rolling pin end to smash
down on the underlying crystals to shatter them. Same thing with the carnauba, which is very
brittle anyway and will shatter into shards quickly.
Slowly blend in the crushed ingredients, stirring at times to help them dissolve. Add more wax
and continue in this manner until all is molten together. Then stir and pour out into moulds to
create sensibly sized pieces for future remelting and for blending in with colours.

Colouring options are really to use dry pigment or pigments already in oil (oil paints). The latter
will introduce some oil into the final encaustic wax blend, so in pure encaustic this is not
something seen as desirable. It is not "wrong" but does seem to defeat the primary idea of using
heat as a solvent. Oil will also soften the final wax to some degree, even if that is a very slight
affect it is still involving another medium type unnecessarily.

To blend in the pigment for production a useful volume of wax paint some molten encaustic wax
medium needs to be melted in a heated metal container. If the container has a flat bottom then it
makes it easier to mill in the dry pigment carefully and a little at a time. For instance, on a
hotplate a flat bottomed baking tin can be used to hold the molten wax, then dry pigment that
has been milled as fine as possible is added and stirred in. A large flat domestic cooking pallet
knife is a good tool to mash the pigment and wax together on the flat bottom of the baking tin,
using strokes that press down and spread sideways, a bit like spreading butter onto bread. This
will ensure that al the particles in the pigment get "wetted" and become contacted by the molten
wax. The better this process is done then the more even the consistency of your final wax paint.
The coloured encaustic wax can then be poured out into molds to cool and be used in the future
or it can just be used there and then.

Small amounts of any colour can be made by melting some medium on a hotplate and then
working in a little pigment - even by dabbing the waxed brush head into a pot of dry pigment,
then coming back to the hotplate and working it into the wax until it reaches the right
consistency.

Of course a hotplate is an ideal mixing place that keeps the wax molten and can also be used to
lay your tool on top of so that they too remain ready warmed for instant use.
Up to Index
Wax Emulsion
Beeswax can also be formed into an emulsion for a cold application liquid medium. Visit the
web site of Jeff Bryant for lots of information, recipes, advice and examples of his wax tempera
paintings. http://wax-egg-oil.port5.com
Up to Index
Ancient encaustic approaches rediscovered in Rome:
Michele Paternuosto introduces his methods to paint encaustic on wood, marble, slate, dry
plaster, gesso and terracotta. http://www.morenart.it/TuttoEng.htm
Punic Wax 1 five gallons of fresh seawater
pure unbleached beeswax
not tested by this site, so please pine resin (balsam and frankincense)
check if you have access to other alkaline salts (washing soda and borax)
methods for this process too! eggs
raw linseed oil
pans, boiling pots, sieves, whisk, scales.

Five days to process the wax with sea water. (Pliny described
the process as boiling beeswax with salt water and potassium
carbonate, and then bleached by the sun, leaving the wax a
paste consistency.)
Then an hour of defolication with the alkaline salts to change
the physical properties of the wax so it would accept being
emulsified with the egg yolks.
This was accomplished by beating the egg into the prepared
foamy wax with a little linseed oil and a drop of balsam using
a
whisk. This will take a while.

You should get a creamy yellow paint.

More about encaustic: http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Encaustic_painting
Wax dissolves in turpentine, mastic, balsam and oils, but not water or alcohol. It's non-yellowing
and forms an emulsion in lyes. The Greeks and Romans stored their pigments in small covered
containers and called them "waxes", pigments in wax and mastic. Add a little turpentine with
your brush and paint away! These ancients were pretty clever also.

They painted with pure melted encaustic wax and pigment too, this was probably the wax Pliny
talked about, the punic or eleodoric wax. Three times melted and cured in salt water, when this
wax was applied on stone for decoration, it was called "ganosis". Traces of this wax are found
on Egyptian sculptures and tombs as far back as 2500 B/C.

The early Greeks, before the "Dark Ages", around 500 B/C, were fond of decorating their statues
and the friezes of buildings, and probably a lot more places that were not so protected from
twenty five hundred years of weather. Traces of wax were found on the Trojan Column in
Rome.
AMMONIA-AND-WAX

Ammonia, NH3, is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen, a water soluble gas.

Ammoniac, a salt and gum found in the Qattara Depression 200 miles East of Memphis, Egypt.
Ammoniac is the remains of a long extinct insect that lived in the area.
 Ammonium, is the Egyptian city founded about 500 B/C, as a shrine to their god Ammon.
Ammonium is also NH4, a radical that plays the part of a metal in the compound formed when
ammonia reacts with acids, ammonium salts are alkali.

Ammonium hydroxide, basic NH4OH is a weak alkali.

Carbonate, a salt of carbonic acid, as calcium carbonate or ammonium carbonate, made by

mixing the ammonium alkali with carbonic acid. H2C03 is formed when carbon dioxide
dissolves in water.

Ammonium carbonate or ammonium hydroxide [common ammonia water], can be mixed with
white beeswax 1:2 and boiled until the effervescence stops, stir the mix until it's cool. This will
be a water soluble wax soap emulsion that will mix with casein, gum, glue, egg, gelatin,
turpentine, resin, balsam, shellac or oil. The volatile ammonia alkali dissipates and the soap
dries insoluble to water, like it was before you started. Put a cap on the container and it will store
for a very long time. Grind your store bought dry pigments into it as you need them.

Giotto added a little cherry gum to the mix and the Byzantine's added a little "milk of fig". This
is the ancient "cera colla' paint of the Dark Ages, except for the shellac, that was tested right
here on Maui, and it worked fine.

I attribute the discovery of cera colla to Egypt and their god Ammon not to Byzantium.

Potassium carbonate or caustic lye soda, is obtained in the impure form from wood ashes, potash
[+IUM], are all the same alkali. It will emulsify wax, but will remain soluble in water, or
hygroscopic.

Up to Index

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