The Heat is On!

Believe it or not, I've started playing with hot wax again. Now, now get your mind out of the gutter...not that kind of play.

Six years ago, I made my 1st candle and fell in love with hot wax. Six and half years ago, I made made last one and fell out of love with hot wax. I don't know if you know this little secret or not....but molten wax is flammable when it comes in contact with a heat source...in this case the electric burner on the stove. I was in the process of making a huge molded candle and want to make somewhat vertical layers instead of horizontal so I had it propped on something so that it was practically laying on it's side...not smart I know. Well I'd gotten the next to the last layer poured when the candle slipped. And then all hell broke out. Whoosh! In a matter of seconds I had a fire blazing right there on the burner. 15 minutes later I had the fire out, and was sitting on the couch doing shots of tequila to calm my nerves. No serious damage done, just a hell of a clean up.

Once again the world wide web as lured me back into the world of molten wax. Encaustic Painting...{Gasp}...I was in love, what beautiful art wax creates.

Encaustics Painting is not a new art...it's some 2000 plus years old. This Terracotta column-krate circa 360–350 B.C. is amongst one of the oldest pieces of encaustic art still around.

The more I researched the more intrigued I became...but not enough to even think about melting wax again. Youtube was my down-fall. It was ok reading about and looking at pictures of wax art, however, the first video I saw had me hooked. Next thing you know, I'm dragging out all my old candle making supplies. Not crazy about the process of making the encaustic medium, but I'm too cheap to pay the high cost of commercially made medium. Whoopie no fires set.