1. Fused: Encaustics in the Middle
School Art Studio
Debora Supplitt
M.Ed./M.A. Art Ed.
November 2, 2012

2. The Encaustic Art Studio
Set up
5 stations for 25 students
Items at each station:
Electric strip and heavy duty extension cord per station.
Encaustic heat trays
30 natural hair paint brushes include one(1) 2” Hake brush for clear
medium
Heat Tool (paint stripper)
1-Medium loaf pan for encaustic medium (Wooden Clothes pins one
per pan)
3-Small loaf pans for yellow, red and blue encaustic medium

3. Wrap your tables or put
down splatter paper

4. Place wood or silicone hot pads under
heating element

5. The set-up

6. Getting Started YouTube:
• This video uses Encaustikos products 9:04
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHt-
x0yIVXg&feature=related
• There is also R & F products 2:30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UFAgD-oqlc

7. Pancake griddle used as a heat tray.
Keep tray temperature below 200 degrees

8. Roll the brushes on the warm tray and
wipe off excess medium with a paper towels.
Clear the medium loaf pans off the
heat tray add a few drops of clear medium
to thin out the mess.
Wipe down heat tray with of paper towels.

9. ½ the class is set up for heated medium and
encaustic fusing,
½ the class is for adding oil pastel and color
HEAT SIDE
COLOR SIDE

10. 90 - 8x10 cut and sanded birch wooden panels
for 75 students/3 classes
CAUTION: WOOD BURRS MAY NEED TO BE SANDED OUT

11. Place name on the back
with a Sharpie marker

12. Step one:
Warm the board up

13. After heating place one coat of clear
medium on the substrate and fuse.

14. Ventilation station fans pointing out the opened
doors. Take the sticky out of the hot board by cooling
the board and medium down in front of the fans
ventilation fans.

15. School Smart or Pentel oil pastels melt the best
and hold their pigment when fused.

16. Create a unique
background

17. Add clear medium to first
color layer and fuse

18. Add background color with
oil pastels
Fuse the oil pastel into the board
Note if you don’t fuse the oil pastels into
the board the next layer of clear
medium will pick up the background
color.
You then have to stop, fuse the oil
pastel layer again and clean the clear
medium brush with the picked up color.
Never put the dirty colored brush back into
the clear medium.

19. Transfer toner image site
• http://lexireidstudio.com/
• http://encausticartist.com/techniques/image-
transfers/
• YouTube Encaustic Transfer: 5:18
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKcbAq7JJ
BM

20. Place transfer image face down rub the back of
image with a spoon
Cut out transfer
image
Place on warm
medium
Burnish with spoon
Rub paper
off with warm water

21. Add color with oil pastels and gently fuse

22. Color Copies of Fayum Mummy Portraits used
for a reference.

23. Black can be a bully and take over the picture.
Start with your lightest color first
flesh, white colors or yellows.

24. Use a potters needles or an Exacto knife
to scrape out errors, runs or smears.

25. Creative 7th Grade Encaustic
Designs

26. Creative 8th grade Fayum
Mummy Portraits

27. Embedded images

28. School mascot,
The Timberwolf
image embedded in encaustic medium.

29. Completed Fayum Mummy
Portraits
7th & 8th Grade

30. More 7 th
& 8th
Grade
Creations

31. A Egyptian Greco-Roman
Fayum Mummy Portrait
multi-cultural display