9″ x 12″, Ceracolors on wooden panel

I had a fairly quiet year spent mostly using ink and I more or less had decided that ink was my medium, but then I stumbled upon a Youtube video about Ceracolors water soluble paint made from pigment and beeswax, and I was super intrigued. I suddenly felt like experimenting with something new. I’m not much of a painter, but that didn’t stop me from buying a sample kit with a few extras including fluid medium.

I decided to layer the paint on wooden supports to see how they perform using scratchboard techniques. That way, I could spend most of my time drawing with a little painting thrown in here and there. The first drawingI completed was the farm scene, a familiar farm that I’ve drawn before. I went overboard and scratched out far too much, using all of my scratchboard tools and then some. (With the bird drawing, my favorite tool was a wooden tool with both a sharp and blunt end. It created the most expressive marks of anything I used.) I decided to put in some color to help things along, and in the end, it was okay. It’s interesting to consider that all of the dark lines and marks on both works are the bottom layer showing through after scratching.

8″ x 10″, Ceracolors on wooden panel

My next try was the Goldfinch.This time, I kept my expectations a little lower, deciding on black-and-white color scheme, and I liked how it ended up.

This is how I prepped my panels. I brushed on a layer of Gac100 on the back (only), and then I sanded the front. I then put on a layer of dark Ceracolors paint that was thinned with the fluid medium. At first, I tried the paint straight out of the tube, but it’s on the thick side, and I probably would have used far too much for a small work. I “set” the layer using a hair dryer, and then I put on a second layer. After that one was dry and set, I decided how to handle the top layer. With the farm, I went with straight white and fluid medium, but with the bird, I tinted the white with yellow ochre. Each time I painted a layer, I used the hair dryer as heat helps cure it. From what I understand, heat isn’t truly needed with Ceracolors, but most videos I watched seemed to do this step. Unlike encaustic, heat isn’t the main purpose of this paint. It’s more about using a wax-based paint without fumes, chemicals, blowtorches, etc.

The paint itself feels like watercolor. In fact, you can use it exactly like watercolor, which is why I was interested in it. However, the fluid medium creates a lovely smoothness that I quickly preferred. When finished, you can use a soft cloth to buff your painting, and it really starts to glow. I loved using these paints. They’re complex but forgiving–and fun.