Particularly interesting was her occasional use of gold and silver leaf laid right over the wax. February through March, we show the work of John King, also from New York. King uses encaustic to produce paintings of great subtlety. At times he thins the already delicate color to such an extent that the pearliness of the wax itself predominates. Combining Oil and Encaustic One of the techniques that we teach in our workshops is the combining of oil paint and encaustic paint.
Oil can give to encaustic greater fluidity, color diffusion, and in some techniques, precision.
It can be, but it is important to understand the ways in which a wax paint and an oil paint are and aren't compatible. If oil is stirred into melted wax, the two will readily combine. In this mixture the balance of oil with wax should be seen as a continuum. At one end of the continuum wax is added to oil to give the paint more body, but the properties and requirements of oil predominate. At the other end of the continuum oil is added to wax, and the properties and requirements of wax predominate.