I have lived in North Wales since childhood and 28 years ago moved to Bala.  I am inspired by the outstanding natural beauty of the Snowdonia National Park.  I have always loved being creative and over the years have mainly used watercolour as my medium.  Recently I’ve found a great interest in colour, texture and patterns and have turned to encaustic painting.  I am constantly experimenting with new ideas and using different tools to transform the wax colour pigments into artistic colourful images.  The finished effect is similar to that of oil painting as you can apply thick layers of wax which are both lightfast and vibrant.

Encaustic painting is an ancient art dating back 3000 years.  It was known to the Egyptians and Greeks who used the wax to paint their warships and decorate the walls of tombs.   The word encaustic is derived from the Greek word: enkaiein   – to burn into.  Nowadays encaustic means any painting method using pigment mixed with beeswax – it can be melted and applied using a small iron or using various hard or soft tools.  You can paint onto different basic materials such as watercolour paper, card, canvas, special encaustic paper or wood.