My First Experiment with Encaustic, 1

Encaustic is an ancient technique using hot wax as a way to paint, and seal, as well as collage, artwork.

About 8 months ago, I had done this colored pencil, marker rendition of an alchemical image I saw in a book...and I had glued it to a piece of wood...

It was on the throw away pile in my studio... so I decided to use it as the first try-out piece for my first time with encaustic. I bought a George Forman grill for $5 a the thrift store, I had a lb of beeswax, I got 2 oz of damar gum on ebay for $5, and I bought a heat gun on ebay for $16 - that's all I need to start.

I mixed the beeswax and damar the other night and poured into a muffin tin.

and began to melt it tonite on the griddle...

I grabbed some oil pastels and a few sigils I did a while back...

Here is a post I did about what a "sigil" is and how to make them https://steemit.com/art/@in2itiveart/praktical-magick-101-a-sigils

https://steemit.com/art/@in2itiveart/practikal-magick-101b-sigils-a-sigil-is-a-prayer

laid them on the wood, and fused them to it...

then took out the oil pastels and started to fill in over the white.

Here is a sigil i did for my neighbor, Danielle, who is a pretty crazy formerly homeless veteran, who moved in next door - it is a prayer that she feels comfortable in her home. I realized later, that I am violating her free will - in a way and this sigil has not exactly worked - but she is still here in the building, and it's been a long while - maybe 8 months, so probably a record for her - but you can see - i took the sentence, pulled the single letters out and made a design... hung it on the wall... I activated the sigil, simply by drawing it, and thinking about her... I decided to use it in this experiment because it was there - and I needed something else for the picture.

in the end, this is what I have got...