Customer Reviews

Encaustic Workshop: Artistic Techniques for Working with Wax

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm pretty sure I own every book out there in regards to Encaustic techniques. With each new release of an "encaustic how to book", the level and variety of instruction supersedes the other. I think Patricia has succeeded in raising the bar on instructional art books. Particularly in the encaustic (painting with wax) area.
It is a comprehensive book and includes a variety of techniques. I don't think she left anything out and included inspiration to explore further. I also find the step by step instructions to be complete. Too many art instruction books have lots of pretty pictures and not enough of the "how to" content. This is not the case here; you get both. Lots of pictures, lots of instruction, lots of content.
This is the perfect book for anyone wanting to learn how to work in encaustic and for those who have some experience but want more.
I highly recommend this book.

Plenty of examples and step-by-step procedures for different encaustic techniques. This is going to be very valuable and save some experimentation. I'm a beginning encaustic artist but shared it with a friend with more experience who also found much useful info in it. Of the three encaustic books I own, this is the one I'll refer to most often.

This book's blurb says (as do breathless Amazon reviewers) that it is "packed with step-by-step techniques" and "diverse examples of completed works," so I was surprised that this book is so limited in scope. The problem with buying books on the internet is that you can't thumb through them. If I had been able to, I would have known in 5 seconds that this was not the book I was looking for. The instruction and photos are clear and precise--if you want to create works similar to the author's. Her works are color and texture washes that may include found objects, craft papers, photos, and scrap-booking doodads embedded in the wax. In fact, most of these pieces rely on commercial, mass-produced items to add "interest" and "meaning," as the author says. Nothing wrong with that, if that's what you want to do. But there is very little here to get you started if that is not what you want to do.

July 2010: I take it back! If you want to do representational or figurative work in encaustic, this book will not overtly help with that part. It really is mostly about texture, color, and collage. However, as the author's ideas "cooked" in my brain, over time, I found I adapted and used some of the techniques presented. As for the author's paintings and the ready-made items in them, I realize that for people who are intimidated about making art, or are insecure about their drawing skills, her book could give them the ideas and confidence to delve in and play, and there's nothing wrong with that.

All encaustic artists should own this book. I frequent this book daily and I use it as a guidebook for encaustic techniques. A little creativity mixed with the techniques outlined in this book, you are sure to enter a new realm in your art.

I am a professional painter and college art professor with a short attention span for learning new techniques. Having taken one workshop in encaustic I wanted to set up a station in my studio to play around with different techniques. The workshop was a few months ago so I needed a simple overview with samples of techniques. This book was perfect. I was able to highlight the techniques I was interested in exploring, make a shopping list for basic supplies and get into the studio and experiment. I only gave it 4 stars because the samples were very "crafty" and not "serious fine art". Would have liked to see what serious professional artists are doing with the medium but will have to explore that on my own.

This book is very clearly written, and I think the author did a good job of making the art form seem accessible. I didn't personally like the book, because I didn't realise when I bought it that it was firmly focused on techniques for craft and altered book-type projects (with a selection of step-by-step follow-alongs at the end). What I was looking for was tips to make it easier to get smooth modeling of forms for portraiture and still life encaustic painting, and this isn't that book. The works the author uses to demonstrate the techniques are things like scrapbooking papers mounted on board with wax over the top, rows of buttons with wax over the top, 1/2 a coffee cup and a teabag mounted on board with silver stars as embellishment, with the occasional use of rub-on scrapbook lettering. There is nothing wrong with this if it's your style, and that's why I have given then book 4-stars, because it is very clear and full of different ideas. However if you'd like to paint encaustic works like Kevin Frank etc, then this will do nothing to help.

I am an accomplished amateur photographer. After seeing an original encaustic painting, I thought I'd like to try photo encaustic,identified in a photo supply catalog, but about which I knew nothing. I bought this book because it was listed first in the subject listings at Amazon (I don't know if that's a ranking), and it was one of only two encaustic books available at a prominent local art store. I thought it must be good.
It isn't bad, but it is quite limited. I've since looked at a number of other books and articles on encaustic. Just in terms of the technical aspects of encaustic, much is missing in this book: fuller coverage of needed equipment [including economics: e.g.,a used potpourri "slow cooker", $2.99 at Goodwill, melts medium quite adequately and the hair dryer "heat gun" was $4.99]; there is no discussion of safety issues or how to address them; and most importantly to me,there is no substantive material on photo encaustic technique. I was left basically not knowing how to do what I wanted to do.
I did not care for the images presented to illustrate techniques. But that is an opinion, not an assessment: it is still true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Perhaps this book supplements, a little, other books on encaustics. But I think there are other texts, more exhaustively written, which would obviate the need for this one.
I purchased the book through Amazon, from one of Amazon's ancillary vendors.

awsome book and will take you to new levels of encaustic discovery/ absolutely the best for learning the ancient art of encaustics. i highly recommend this, it is fabulous if you want to learn a lot of new techniques!

This book has a wide range of using encaustic mediums in new ways. The techniques are so varied that you will probably find something to push your creativity if you have the basics or have been working encaustics for awhile. The examples are easy to follow.

This book is well done and is certainly inspirational. One can get all the technical information necessary but at the same time be inspired and creatively challenged. There are more advanced projects here and lots of excitement.