Carrie Baxter
Encaustic Painter
Carrie Baxter
As Carrie Baxter describes her encaustic wax painting process, she says, “I apply encaustic paint, made with beeswax, damar resin, and pigments, to panels with brushes and heated tools to create fused layers. My layering technique often involves translucent and semi-translucent wax to create a luminous depth, and, through a meticulous layering process that creates subtle, flowing shifts in color and tone, it allows individual layers to merge visually, resulting in an atmospheric quality that gives my work both depth and softness.”
Encaustic is an ancient art form that originated in Greece more than 2,000 years ago. Carrie’s unique technique of applying multiple layers of encaustic wax paint, enhanced with various mixed media such as mica powder, shellac, paper, image transfers, and oil pigments, allows each layer to visually merge and create rich and nuanced color combinations, intriguing textures, and organic surface variations that can only be achieved through this medium.
Carrie says, “My process begins with the careful preparation and melting of paints,” she says. “I use a heated palette to melt individual tins of color until they reach a fully molten state, at which point I apply them to rigid substrates using natural-hair brushes.”
Each layer of wax paint is then fused with heat, either from a hand-held torch or a heat-gun, ensuring it bonds to the layer beneath. A hallmark of her style is the integration of drawing within the wax surface. Carrie embraces the natural versatility of encaustic by carving, scratching, and manipulating the surface of the wax, by using tools such as dental picks, straight pins, razor blades, and heated pens to build rich, tactile compositions. This makes her work recognizable by the surface texture, visual complexity and narrative.
In her Noblesville studio, Carrie creates original paintings in a wide range of sizes and price points to accommodate budgets or preferences and to provide ideal options for collectors at every level – small and large translucent pieces, framed and unframed, as well as reproduction prints and notecards are available for purchase.
Website: carriebaxter.com
Instagram: carrie_baxter_artist
Facebook: Carrie Baxter Artist
