Supply List

Supply List for Plaster and Wax 101

Substrates: thick cardboard or wood at least ¼ -3/4” thick x 12“

Scraps are fine, too. The wood doesn’t have to be of great quality

Paint: craft paint, fluid, not Golden or Liquitex, some of your favorite colors, some warm, some cool. Martha Stewart makes some great colors.

A palette to mix your paint on. This can be sheets of freezer paper, palette paper, paper plates or a plastic lid

A rag or paper towels (Viva brand for the encaustic work, if you can’t find this brand, find one that is very fine and won’t leave a lot of fibers when wiping

Brushes: whatever you have in your studio already, with one 2-inch-wide chip brush dedicated to wax that you can find at the hardware store

Wax: Wax medium
Old electric frying pan or find one at a garage sale and dedicate it to encaustic wax
A couple of colors that you are drawn to of Oil Pastels , Oil Sticks or pan pastels, or a combination of these. If you have oil paint already, you can use those. You don’t need all of these, just a few when we work on the encaustic portion of the portrait.

If using pan pastels, makeup sponges that you get at the drugstore

Optional: Enkaustikos Hot Sticks or Enkaustikos-wax-snaps, just a couple of colors that you are drawn to.

Plaster: plaster wrap or Rigid wrap plaster 8″ or 12″ and joint compound
Trowel or old credit card to spread the joint compound with
Sandpaper, fine grit

Things to inscribe in the plaster and wax—stuff you can find around the house, dental tools (everyone has these, right?!), chopsticks, broken paint brushes, calligraphy pens that don’t work anymore, small biscuit cutters, you get the idea. Go through your mark making tools that you use for your painting and go through your tools out in the garage. Gather up what looks like it would be fun to work with, wax and plaster tools, pottery tools

Stencils of your choosing
Matte Medium – Golden or Liquitex
Heat gun: heat gun or if you already have a craft heat gun