a wax collage tutorial

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Ruth Ann Landry

a wax collage tutorial

Post by Ruth Ann Landry »

1. Prepare your substrate...It's easier to do it now than after the wax has been added. I use a 3/4 inch board here..about 5in x 6in...I painted the back and all edges black

2. I adhered text (music, here) with gel medium and let dry fully. I then sanded around the edges to have a clean, neat edge.
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Ruth Ann Landry

Re: a wax collage tutorial

Post by Ruth Ann Landry »

3. Meanwhile, I gather supplies: some collage items I want to use. Here I have some images that I have cut out, some green tissue paper that I have stamped on with stazon ink, and a decorative napkin that I have separated from the back layer.

4.My melting pot is set at 300 to melt the wax...notice my waxy brush melts in the pot as well so that I can use it over and over, a tweezer, a scraper, a heat gun.....you may see newspaper under my supplies, but there is a teflon mat below that. Bees wax is very tacky and not fun to scrape off a mat so I always use something else to catch my drips. I also dedicate one side of my teflon mat to wax work and the other side to ink work, etc as the wax never completely comes off and will always be somewhat tacky whereever the wax has dripped.
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Ruth Ann Landry

Re: a wax collage tutorial

Post by Ruth Ann Landry »

5. Here you see my nearly melted wax with the brush melting along with it...don't use plastic bristles as they may melt as well...

6. I HEATED THE SUBSTRATE FIRST, as the wax will not gel as quickly on a warm surface.

7. I then applied a layer of wax all over the substrate. Try to work quickly and apply an even layer.
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Ruth Ann Landry

Re: a wax collage tutorial

Post by Ruth Ann Landry »

8. AND THIS IS IMPORTANT WHEN WORKING WITH WAX.....FUSE EVERY LAYER!!! Here I went over the waxed surface with my heat gun and heated it until shiny and somewhat remelted. You can see some changes to the text as the wax melts. If I feel I have too thick a layer of wax and it gels white, I simply hold the work up on end and melt and let the excess melt off and drip onto the newspaper...this is also where the scraper comes in handy...you can remove that excess wax while the wax is still warm. Remove the wax from your scraper and put back into your melted wax container..no waste.

9. I added my stamped tissue paper to the bottom...the wax is tacky and will hold new items nicely.
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Ruth Ann Landry

Re: a wax collage tutorial

Post by Ruth Ann Landry »

10..I brushed a layer of wax over the tissue, let set somewhat...THEN FUSED...with heatgun.

11. Once fused, the image becomes clearer...again, if you want less wax, use the scraper or melt and let drip off.
Next, I added the decorative napkin to the top and tried something a little different. As I said, the wax is tacky so the thin napkin adheres nicely. I laid the napkin down, burnished a bit with my fingers, and used the heatgun without additional wax to bring the wax layer underneath UP through the napkin...Unfortunately, the napkin I chose was a very pale color, so it kind of got lost...but this works great with darker napkins. So I tore another, thinner strip of napkin, laid it over the first layer of napkin and applied wax OVER that and the color remained truer...again, since wax was added, you must FUSE!
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Ruth Ann Landry

Re: a wax collage tutorial

Post by Ruth Ann Landry »

12..In the first photo, you can just see how the two layers of napkins looked so different..you can just see the line of the first application about halfway down the music text....I picked up the cut out of the door in my tweezers and dipped the whole thing in my melted wax and applied directly to the substrate as quickly as I could...I scraped any extra wax with scraper. I then fused that element.

13. Here I am dipping the cut out of the girl into the wax and I applied her to the substrate in the same way....and fused, of course!
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Ruth Ann Landry

Re: a wax collage tutorial

Post by Ruth Ann Landry »

14. Here is a closeup of cutouts applied to substrate.

15. and the whole work, thus far....
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Ruth Ann Landry

Re: a wax collage tutorial

Post by Ruth Ann Landry »

16. I added some titling the same way I did other cutout elements, by dipping into the wax...

17. I got out my perfect pearls and went to town..they adhere wonderfully to wax. I rubbed forever green into the tissue to give it shine, I rubbed Forever red into just the darkest parts of the door, and my fav, Heirloom gold into the music paper. I added some spots of perfect pearls white to the blue napkin to give it a sky appearance....When the wax is cool and dry, buff it to bring up the overall shine.

I hope this has helped you with getting started in wax collage...I would have liked to have taken more photos, but I'm home alone and found it a tough thing to do with hot wax that gels quickly...not easy with wax in one hand and a camera in the other!!! If you have questions, please ask.....and PLEASE, IF YOU GET "WAXY" POST HERE SO I CAN SEE TOO!!!!
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Debbie J

Re: a wax collage tutorial

Post by Debbie J »

Dang it, now I'm going to have to order some beeswax!
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Re: a wax collage tutorial

Post by Monica »

What a fun tutorial! Thank you doing this, Ruth Ann!
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Re: a wax collage tutorial

Post by clamscrapper »

Ruth Ann, I unearthed my pan and wax. Believe me this was probably the hardest part for me considering where I'd put it. Getting ready to paint my board and pull some papers. Probably won't get anymore done today, heading out in about an hour. But it will be ready to work on tomorrow. Thanks for the tut, it looks like fun.
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Ruth Ann Landry

Re: a wax collage tutorial

Post by Ruth Ann Landry »

Here's my last collage for the day...one view with some camera flash...I used Eiffel tower napkin, cut out of girl and butterfly...lots of blue and purple perfect pearls in the sky....and just to show you that you can do it.......RUB ONS...down the right edge...(the black circles...)
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Re: a wax collage tutorial

Post by troublesmom »

Wonderful art Ruth Ann.
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Debbie J

Re: a wax collage tutorial

Post by Debbie J »

Do you use resin in your wax?
Ruth Ann Landry

Re: a wax collage tutorial

Post by Ruth Ann Landry »

no...no need really...it dries hard and very dry surface when cured...
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