Encaustic tips

[richsc]

Just got started with my encaustic and had a few thoughts on it.

1. Heat source: why fool with flames when you can use a hotpad? I bought a cheap, dual plate one with continuous heat control (that's important) from Walmart. Put a pan of water on it and used an oven thermometer to gauge 150' F. No hot spots and very little risk of flames.

2. Sinopia suggested 1/2 beeswax and 1/2 carnauba wax for a durable surface. Yes, carnauba is south American, and bleached it is amber in color.

3. I realized that it is very long lasting, and portable in a sack. Cassein paints spoil in a day; wax cools to a lump that you pop out and stick with other lumps of paint indefinitely.

Q to anyone: what proportion of wax to pigment do you find good?

[GaiusAquiliusBritannicus]

Rich,
If you haven't had a chance to check out this old thread from Carlton and myself, check this out:
http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic. ... =encaustic

For myself, I found that not even one full teaspoon was plenty of pigment to paint with for the red pigment, but quite a bit more black was needed to get a nice deep black color. I suspect it completely depends on the type of pigment you are using. I believe I used Iron Oxide for the red (very coarse and heavy) and this mixed very readily in the wax/resin. The black was a more powdery substance (I know it wasn't coal dust, but something like that), and it took quite a bit (I want to say 3 - 5 teaspoons) to get the same rich colors.

You are a much smarter man than myself for buying a hot plate!! Working on a Coleman camp stove was less than fun and definately was a right royal pain in the arse for keeping a constant temp. I also recommend buying the special tool they sell in art stores for 'finishing' the encaustic painting. The tool looks like a little electric iron and is supposedly great for smoothing out the wax when you're all done painting(much better than a heat gun I'm told...).

I used Damar resin as it was recommended to me by the folks at fineartstore.com, who said that it was close to historical resins of the middle east, but I can not attest to that myself.

Also, let us know how your shield stands up to the summer sun! I took mine out to an event north of Kansas City in the beginning of june and in less than 20 minutes, it looked like a melted candle (I have pics somewhere...)

good luck!

Britannicus

[Marcus Mummius]

Also, let us know how your shield stands up to the summer sun! I took mine out to an event north of Kansas City in the beginning of june and in less than 20 minutes, it looked like a melted candle

Mmmm that doesn't sound good. I really wonder what kind of paint the romans used for their shields. Egg tempera paint doesn't stand up good to water and encaustic melts in the sun... Can you use both types of paint to paint on a rawhide cover?

What paint should one use for a shield to be as authentic as possible?

Valete,

[GaiusAquiliusBritannicus]

I know that if you search for Dura Shield (I think) on this list you'll come up with a past conversation in which ppl have discussed what types of paint where used on Roman shields. I *think* archaeological evidence points to encaustic and casein (milk paint) as the two most common. Casein paints are very stable once painted on and are very vibrant (or can be) if painted onto a gesso base (gesso is basically marble dust and hide glue...makes a great foundation for accepting paints).

Re: encaustic painting, though, I'm starting to convince myself that either there was an additional 'setting' agent used with the wax paint, or else we're just using the wrong type of resin-wax mixture. When I sent an image of the Dura shield to the Mike at fineartstore.com, he said there was no doubt that it was an encaustic painted shield, which I believe chemical analysis has held up....

I just want to see a chemical analysis done on the encaustic shields... I think if we could get an inventory of the chemicals in the wax paint, we could better recreate what they were using in the proper ratios.

I know that when you paint with distemper paints (basically hide glue plus pigment) and then you add Alum to the mix, it becomes waterproof. Perhaps the Romans added something else that significantly raised the melting point of the wax mixture?

Either that or the Romans used a technique unknown to us. I freely admit I used way too much wax to finish my shields, so perhaps that adds to the instability of the wax (traps too much heat)? The fine film of wax which was left on the shield after the majority melted away seemed VERY attached to the canvas and did not melt any further from the shield face. This was a very thin layer, though, and did not look 'good'.

I still have a lot of supplies left, so I haven't given up. I just need to buy an electric griddle, too, so that I can obtain better temperature control.

Uale!

Britannicus

[GaiusAquiliusBritannicus]

Found the link to the casein vs encaustic topic on RAT:

http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic. ... ura+shield

cheers!

Britannicus

edit: also found this link which describes other aspects of the dura finds:
http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic. ... ra+europos

[Marcus Mummius]

Thanks for the links!

MarsVigila asked how to waterproof the caseine painted surface with lineseed oil. I'm wondering about this as well. Do you just paint with caseine paint and then brush on lineseed oil? Can you paint on rawhide with caseine paint? And my last question: can you waterproof a caseine painted shield by painting hot wax on it, very thinly (and won't the wax melt in the sun?)?

Kind regards

[richsc]

We in LegioXX have been putting SnoSeal over the cassein, and heating it with a blow dryer. We haven't had the shields in the sun yet, so we are not sure how that will stand up.

Carnauba was has a higher melting point than beeswax, so maybe stands up to sun better.

Makes me wonder if the reason you see cassein and wax together on the Dura shields is that they were redecorated with changing seasons (I think it does get cold enough in Syria) or perhaps the units moved between climates.