Melanie Williams encaustic & mixed media art gives a brief insight into some of her artwork and techniques. Mel lives in Wales in the Snowdonia National Park and is inspired by the spectacular scenery. She also runs encaustic art workshops. Mel is proud to announce she is now part of the ‘Painting with Fire 2024/25 online workshops’. Copy the link for more information: bit.ly/3uMSCAv See her website at www.melaniewilliams.net
I love it. Thanks so much for sharing. I also like working on ply and was wondering how you fix the board to the frame? Do you make the frames custom yourself? Really appreciate seeing your techniques. Great inspiration! 🙏🏽
Incredible work! I just received a beginner encaustic set, I’m excited to start this journey. I’m also an art collector, is this original still available?
Hi Angela. So glad you enjoyed watching the video. You will soon be hooked on encaustic painting - it gets in your blood! The original painting sold immediately but I can do something very similar. You can never recreate exactly with encaustic. Thank you so much.
New to this, love your videos. Why did you choose the big torch to do your first fusing rather than the air gun? I currently have an air gun and a very small hand torch and I am looking into buying something bigger and the torch realm so I’m not having a refill so often.
Oooh I’m in the spotlight this week for ‘Essence of Mulranny Painting with Fire 2024/25’. So excited to be releasing my first video as part of the team of worldwide tutors. My workshop is released next Wednesday 22nd May. You can still join up and my personal link is here: www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?ii=1819388&cl=320457&c=ib&aff=410399 I am so looking forward to receiving your feedback and would love to know what you would like to see in my second video for later this year. Please let me know. In addition once joined up you get to see all the workshops and have lifetime access. How great is that? Thank you Lora for inviting me to be part of the encaustic gang. #EncausticArt #PaintingWorkshops #CreativeJourney #melaniewilliams #paintingwithfire #welshart #celfgain #encausticpainting #Gowiththeflow
Good stuff. I too am in a lot of pain big time. I have a question how do you store the oil pigments? I keep mine in a bag some wrapped with cellophane or still in the tube? I know sometimes it’s hard to get out. Do I just put the in a box without anything on the tops? Also I love your pan on the hot plate. I know you live super far Have any idea where to find one. Thank you🌻
Hi Lynn. Sorry to hear you are living with pain too. I keep the oil in the tubes and make sure the lids fit properly. The oils will set if you leave the lids off and be useless for making encaustic paint. The small pans I use are children’s play pans. Some are from IKEA if you have that store. The small ones are actually metal measuring cups. I’d love to see some of your work. All my best wishes. Mel
I’d be glad to receive your feedback on my ‘Painting with Fire 2024/25’ Go with the flow painting foliage video once you’ve seen it. To be released on 22nd May. Thank you. Mel
Hi Mel. I have been doing encaustics for a long time as well and am so glad to have found your channel. Always more to learn. Happy New Year from Pebble Beach California !
Thank you for sharing. I love your work and I love seeing how other encaustic artists create. I am curious why you start with clear layers instead of straight away with colours? Is it personal preference or does it create a different type of effect?
I begin with clear medium only because I feel it is a bit of a waste to add colour in the initial layers. Also by adding the layers it causes the paint to merge and flow in the way I like it to when hitting it with the blow torch - this is especially true for the sky. Thank you for enjoying my work. Best wishes Mel
This was such a fascinating video to watch! Thank you for sharing your insight and process. Seeing your approach to landscape painting was incredibly helpful. I am curious, do you ever make your own black sticks by combining a combination of pigments instead of straight black from the tube? Again, this was terrific!
Thank you so much. I am so glad the video was helpful. I tend to keep all the oddments of paint from the day. Mix it together and then add a bit of black oil paint or pigment. This means the paint isn’t pure black. I find the oil paint really gets into those nooks and crannies. It takes time to dry though. Best wishes. Mel ❤️
Thank you, Mel, for sharing your workflow! "Go With the Flow" takes us out of bodies and away from the pain. I use tai chi, watercolors and encaustics to achieve that meditative flow state myself. Beautiful work!
I’ve enjoyed your video very much. Thank you so much for sharing, Mel. I’m so glad I’ve met you at the Celtic Convergence Conference in Mulranny. The work you do is very impressive. Hopefully we’ll see each other again at another event in the future.
Your work is beautiful and this is a lovely video thank you! I am just ready to start out on my journey, I have all i need except pigment. I do have oik paints but worried and decided they may not be suitable as the oil paint needs oxygen to harden/dry. It would be great if i could use them. Did you mean to say that you colour your medium with oil paint? I have my fingers crossed! Much thanks from Fern's mother!
Thank you for your comments. I’m glad you found the video helpful. I do use oil paint. Make sure it is of good quality though not extremely cheap versions - these seem to ooze oil when you open them. You will know when you mix the oil paint into the wax if you have too much paint. If you make a few small batches you can let it set and if the wax is bendy there is too much oil paint. I use silicone cake moulds to make up the colour. Another trick is to let the oil paint sit on a piece of kitchen roll before you add it to the wax just so it absorbs the oil. You can also use oil pastels to colour the paint. Once again make sure these are lightfast if you want to sell your work. If you rub the oil paint over the surface of the wax and then wipe off the excess this also works very well. You will know if you have too much oil paint as it won’t mix in properly and leave wet oily patches on your work. Just wipe them off and apply in thinner layers. The best thing is to experiment. Less is more with oil paint. You can buy ready made small blocks of wax medium too - these often are just wax and pigment without the damar resin (needed to keep the wax hard). So ideally you need to mix them with encaustic medium to use in your work. I use a ratio of 8:2 Beeswax to Damar and use a deep fat fryer to melt. Cheap and cheerful and very easy to control the temperature. I hope this is of help. I’d love to see your work when you get going. I’m on instagram Melanie.williams1 if you ever get around to sharing your work.
