Iron drawing Automatic translate

Colored wax painting, encaustic, this is an incredibly ancient art. But now it is still relevant. Moreover, in the modern world it has received a new life. At some point, people with a creative approach to ordinary things guessed to use an iron to melt wax, thus making encaustic accessible to literally everyone.

In order to draw with an iron, we need the iron itself, wax crayons and cardboard. It is also advisable to purchase a handle with a heating element, but you can do without it, especially at first. The iron should have a smooth surface, without holes. Best of all, if it is a small travel iron, it will be easier for them to draw small details.

Cover the work surface with old newspapers, prepare cardboard and other necessary items and turn on the iron, setting the minimum temperature. The general idea is simple - the sole of the iron is painted over with wax crayon, the wax melts, and when you run the iron over the cardboard, a wide colorful brushstroke remains on the latter. If you are unsatisfied with how the paint went down, you can easily correct the picture - just swipe the iron over it again, the wax will melt and lie differently. You can apply several colors to the sole of the iron. Wax paints do not mix, but this will allow you to get interesting color transitions and stains.

The technique of drawing with an iron is intuitive. Having made one wide smooth movement, we get a smooth surface texture. So you can draw the sky. In wavy movements we draw something similar to mountains, waves on the surface of the water. In order to get a textured, convex, bumpy surface, we first paint, and then we apply the iron perpendicular to the cardboard sheet and remove it in the same way.

Please note that any picture is drawn from top to bottom, strip after strip. You will not be able to correct the image at the top after painting the underlying space, as the wax under the iron will melt. Therefore, bring each smear to the desired appearance immediately. After each stroke, the sole of the iron is thoroughly wiped.

The technique of drawing with an iron is not very suitable for portraits and other similar things - you can’t draw small details with such a working tool. But then it is ideal for painting landscapes and abstract paintings. Even if we do everything in exactly the same way, we will never get two identical pictures - each time the molten wax gives rise to completely unique twists and turns. And it is precisely in this that lies the charm of this fine technique.

However, even in the landscape, some details do not bother us. They are applied after the background and large elements of the landscape are completed, using the nose and edges of the iron. Thin lines of the iron with a shaded fin can draw thin lines: grass, tree trunks and tree branches, and the like. Dipping a little nose in chalk, you can apply small strokes to the image, thus drawing flowers and leaves, birds and other small details. You can also depict foliage by dripping molten wax from a spout. If you like encaustic and want to do it more seriously, buy a special pen with a heating element to draw more details.

After the picture is completed, we only have to wait a bit until the wax hardens (this happens very quickly), and then lightly polish the surface with a soft, clean cloth. This will make the drawing smoother.