THE ORIGINS OF ENCAUSTIC ART
Encaustic comes from the Greek, meaning "burn in," and using wax to paint has been around for over 2,500 years. Wax portraits have appeared on Egyptian mummy cases and the Romans and Greeks used molten beeswax tinted with pigments to create portraits. Many paintings which appeared on mummy cases were guilded. The technique has been revived and refined in recent years and has become very popular especially in fantasy art. Wax blocks are melted and applied to card using a small flat iron and scribing tools to achieve interesting and unusual images. The image opposite is a mummy portrait from Antiopolis. The heavy guilt portrait was found in winter 1905/06 and sold to Berlin in 1907. Berlin, Egyptian Museum.
Today wax enthusiasts buy from people like my friend Barry Moulton, a talented wax artist himself, who runs Wakes Waxes and is a host on the EncausticsNow Group on Red Bubble. Check out Barry's website http://www.waxes.co.uk/ He has helpful and informative demonstrations on the site so that you can see if doing wax art is for you. It is a fun and inexpensive hobby and Barry stocks all that you would need to take up wax art.
John Vandebrooke of Expert Village, USA also has useful demonstrations on You Tube. This is a link to one of a series of them on You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCOXsC2kEIM&feature=related