About Encaustic Art

Brief History

Encaustic art is painting with molten, pigmented beeswax. It dates back at least 2500 years, to ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian civilisations, long before the advent of oil-based paint.

The artist had to mix his own colours by blending the pigment and wax in heated clay pots. The molten mixture was then quickly applied to an absorbent backing, such as plaster, canvas or wood, using sticks and/or brushes. It then had to be subjected to heat, to melt the wax layers sufficiently to cause them to bond to each other, and to the backing to prevent flaking, but not enough to cause the fluid wax to 'run' and so ruin the picture. This process was known as 'burning in'. The word encaustic comes from a Greek word enkaustikos meaning ‘to heat’ or ‘to burn’. The French have a similar word encaustiquer meaning ‘to polish’ or ‘to wax’

Encaustic paintings are far more durable than oils, etc. because the wax inhibits the oxidation of the pigments and protects against moisture. In museums worldwide, there are examples of encaustic portraits on wood that are over 2000 years old, yet have retained their original beauty.

Today

Because of the durability of encaustic, there are a few artists using this ancient, but laborious technique even to this day. This, however, is NOT the technique used by Lester Edenborough. He prefers an exciting and challenging technique, in that it involves a controlled gamble and thereby automatically creates a 'happending' that may give, on a good day, a beautiful impression of something really attractive; and, on a bad day, a - well, to put it bluntly, - a hopeless mess!

The challenge is to make what one can of the 'happening' - which is easier said than done. However, some of Lester's most successful paintings have come from a redeemed hopeless mess.

The Technique

Lester’s images are created by using heated metal implements to spread, dab, and otherwise manipulate the coloured waxes in such a way as to take advantage of the flow properties of molten wax. Surprisingly, a frequently used tool is a domestic iron!

According to how the wax is applied, so 'patterns' resembling sky, water, trees, ground cover, etc. emerge. The exact nature of any pattern cannot be forecast in advance so, as already indicated, there is an element of luck in creating these pictures. Sometimes one can keep applying the wax with no beneficial result. At other times one can get a truly wonderful surprise, and the big challenge then is to avoid spoiling the effect when adding in other patterns to create a picture.

The skill of the artist, therefore, lies in combining these chance patterns into an aesthetically pleasing whole. Many of the pictures on this site are the result of this process, to a greater or lesser degree.

Whilst this can be very frustrating, it can also be very rewarding, especially when an effect never previously encountered occurs. A good example of that is the late evening sun breaking through the cloud in the painting 'Sundown' seen on the right.