Beeswax Questions

I've gotten several questions about beeswax in the last couple days and thought I'd share them with you....

Q - is this the same as encaustic wax?

A - No, encaustic was is a seperate art technique/medium. It is a mixture of beeswax, pigments and sometimes additional resins or mediums are added to the mix. This mixture is then used to create entire paintings.

Q - How much beeswax does it take for a collage?

A - Well, that's hard to say...I know, that's a cop out but seriously it all depends on the size of collage and the techniques you choose to incorporate into your collage. I am showing LOTS of techniques in this one collage. Much of the time you would use 2-3 of these techniques but other times you might like to use them all.

If you were creating a simply paper/ephemera collage with 1 or 2 dimensional embellishments I'd say one jar of Ranger beeswax pellets would create 3-4 ~ 8"x8" sized collages. Possibly more if you're not as messy as I am ;)

It really does go a long way since you can use your heat gun to submerge many layers of paper into one or two layers of wax.

Q - How hot is the wax? / Is it safe for kids?

A - Beeswax has a fairly low melt temperature. If you get a drop of wax on your skin it won't burn you say like grease or UTEE would. As far as children I would say as long as the kids understand that the melt pot is extremely hot and will burn them and under adult supervision they would be fine. It's a very forgiving material so if a mistake was made it's easily corrected... very kid friendly on that point.

Q - Can I mix colors into my wax?

A - YES! I haven't gotten that far but yes, you can mix all sorts of pigments into the beeswax to create some awesome effects :)

I think that's most of the questions for now...if I forgot anyone, please let me know and I'll be sure to post :)