Waxes.co.uk
Title
Encaustic Art. Encaustic Wax Supplies, UK
Description
My first glimpse of encaustic art was in April 1989; my wife, Pam, and I were looking round a stately home in Kent and there happened to be a large craft fair in marquees in the grounds - one of the most interesting stands had fantastic pictures of castles, caves, waterfalls etc in bright, colours which seemed to glow. A man was showing how he melted coloured beeswax with an iron and put it on to a sealed surface card; there it dried almost instantly but was reworkable at any time just by reapplying the iron and the iron was creating wonderful, detailed effects - we watched in amazement and after a while bought one of the smallest pictures!
In September, 1989, Pam bought me some encaustic wax colours, a travel-sized iron and some painting card all by mail-order; when I eventually switched the iron on and combined these 3 things (wax, card, iron), those magical effects started to appear and for a couple of years, I had a very enjoyable hobby.
In June, 1992, we plucked up courage and booked a table at a local craft fair where people, to my amazement, bought my pieces of card with coloured wax on them! They called me an artist too! (I've got no artistic background whatsoever!) Several visitors to the stand were so intrigued (I was sitting there working away with my iron etc), that they wanted to know all about it and where they could buy materials to have a go themselves. "Have to send away for it" I said.
