Setup

Popular misconception is that encaustic is a hard medium to learn or that it requires a large investment of money to get started. Encaustic painting does take some getting used to, but I personally don't find it that much different that a lot of other painting mediums. There are some advantages to encaustic painting. For example, encaustic paint is never really "dry" or "wet" . If it is heated its in a liquid state and if it is cool its solid. this happens in a matter of seconds so there is no wait time for drying. So you can add layer after layer with only seconds in between. Also encaustic doesn't take a great deal of money to get started. All you need is a heat source, brushes, and some encaustic paints. My setup is simple. I have a wood burning tool with a temperature regulator ( heat source),

 two encaustic metal wire brushes ( brushes)

 and encaustic paint.

Some people use a heat gun but its not necessary because the woodburning tool "burns in" the colors
This simple setup can provide you with the ability to create realistic encaustic paintings with control and have the look of a oil painting. In the up coming posts I will walk through how to create realistic encaustic works of art. Stay tuned!