Photo What?

Well, photo encaustic. Or simply, mixed media plus photography. Photo encaustic is the technique of combining mixed media (primarily melted beeswax) with a photograph to create a unique look; one that is an ethereal, a one-of-a-kind image with a mysterious look to it. The beeswax creates a layer which slightly diffuses the photograph. Even if I make two of the same, each will look a bit different.

I use two techniques. One is a pigment-print (archival) photograph mounted to a substrate (usually a pre-made "cradle") then applying beeswax in several layers, often enhanced with oil paint. The other is, printing my image on archival tissue paper, embedding it into a few layers of beeswax, adding more layers of beeswax, and usually enhancing with oil paint. With this method, I can create several "slices" of a photo to create a large piece, by carefully placing them together. As you can imagine, this is a tricky method.

This explanation probably makes no sense to you, so have a look at my encaustic images to see what I mean! They are under FINE ART on my site.