Tami Clark is a self-taught artist that began researching and exploring art mediums in 1995 and has built an arsenal of techniques to use in her assemblage and mixed media art. She is a full-time Director of Youth Ministries and has taught seminars on mixed media with the focus on empowering students. Her inspiration comes from watching students of all ages discover that their natural instincts find a home in the world of mixed media.

Encaustic Painting

The Found Treasures show includes works that feature encaustic painting. In some of her pieces, she layers encaustic paint over a layer of plaster. She often uses found objects to finish the piece.

Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax melted with damar resin and colored pigments. It can take hours to get the beeswax and damar resin to melt to the correct consistency as they have very different melting points. The molten liquid is then applied to a surface—usually prepared wood, though canvas and other materials can also be used.

Metal tools and special brushes can be used to shape the paint before it cools, or heated metal tools can be used to manipulate the wax once it has cooled onto the surface. Tools such as heat guns, propane torches and other methods of applying heat allow artists to extend the amount of time they have to work with the material. Because wax is used as the pigment binder, encaustics can be sculpted as well as painted.