"Aurora Borealis" is an encaustic painting on a 5 x 7" canvas board and framed in a gold colored frame. This painting reminds me of the first and only time I ever saw the Northern Lights in 1967 at our farm near the Canadian Border. The sky was breath taking and it has since been enbedded in my mind. Encaustic paint is made from pure pigment and a mixture of molten beeswax and damar resin. The paint is applied hot with a variety of tool, then cools and hardens within seconds. The process is quite seductive, tactile, and sultry. Painting with hot wax results in a velvety matte finish, like the frosting on a donut. The most amazing thing about encaustic, is the endless versatility. Multiple layers of paint and clear wax create overlapping color and amazing depth. The medium can be textured, scraped, incised, etched, combed, embossed, sculpted into three dimensional bits or smoothed to a glassy finish. The molten nature of the medium just begs to be used for collaging or imbedding mixed media into the wax. Since beeswax is compatible with oil paint, oil pigment sticks can be used to glaze in rich color or to fill in incised markings. Even though this is a new medium for me Encaustic Painting Is Older Than Oil Painting. Although it seems new, encaustic is actually one of the world's most ancient and archival painting mediums, predating oil paint. The Fayum portraits from Grego-Roman Egypt, circa 100 B.C. to 200 A.D., have survived through the centuries. Encaustic was a lost art until pioneer Jasper Johns began contemporary encaustic painting in 1954, exposing it to a new generation of artists. Encaustic painting requires very particular materials and equipment like heat guns, blow torches, tacking irons, crock pots and electric griddles. New tools are constantly being discovered and because this is new to me, I use items I find in hardware and kitchen supply stores, plus whatever I have around my own kitchen. Gallery price is $179.00 Item #AB32507AWC