ABOUT THE ROLAND HOTbox™ — YOUR IMAGINATION WILL SOAR!
The Gen 3 Roland HOTbox™ is possibly the most versatile encaustic equipment available. The possibilities are limitless!
The ROLAND HOTBOX™ is now manufactured by Vent-A-Fume in Buffalo, NY.
It’s the same dependable encaustic equipment as always—excellent as a painting palette, a monotype print surface, and any encaustic process your creativity dreams up!
Designed for creating professional encaustic monotypes, Hotboxes are great for encaustic collage and other encaustic work on paper or fabric.
By using two or more boxes, and using larger plates to span them, one can create works of nearly any size! The incandescent bulbs (its heat source) heat evenly and the wax will NOT overheat which could create toxic fumes. No additional fusing is needed when using the HOTbox for printing!
Saturate paper and cloth in plain or colored wax, creating translucency.
Keep small paint pans warm and to mix colors directly on the anodized palette plate. (Anodizing prevents colors from reacting and oxidizing which turns them greyish, and the anodized plate cleans easily).
Join paper with wax in collage.
Place paper, encaustic prints, smooth card, or other surface on the plate, face-up, and heat from the rear. Then paint or draw on the surface with encaustic, mixed media, and drawing media such as graphite, charcoal, oil pastels, or oil bar.
Warm your wood panels prior to encaustic painting, so paint does not “freeze up” and paint application is smoother.
Heat painting panels from the rear so encaustic brush does not freeze up.
Painting on panels, to liquify paint or paint wet into wet.
Working on the Roland HOTbox™ is freeing, even mesmerizing. Begin with a sense of play to get the feel, paying close attention to what happens, what you like, and why. Your variables are Heat- (More heat = more saturation of surface, less control and detail); Printing paper- varies by absorbency, thickness, surface, sizing, etc.; and Pigment load/ratio to wax. These are the main variables, but there are many others.
It is easy to create a print, but not so easy to get a work that satisfies or goes beyond. Many have commented that
“This is the most difficult ‘easy’ thing I have ever done!”.With Paula you have the benefit of over 25 years of her successful experimentation and exhibitions.
GETTING STARTED
Sign up for one of Paula’s FOCUS Monotype classes through CatalystArtLab.com. These are offered live online with Paula available for advice and inspiration.
Take the self-directed, digitally recorded course, ENCAUSTIC MONOTYPES: Painterly Prints With Heat and Wax, where you
can work at your own pace. Refer as needed to the handouts: resources, a chapter-by-chapter study guide, and additional materials and videos.Take a Private or Semi-Private workshop with Paula in Santa Fe!
SOME BASIC FACTS
No press is needed. Encaustic printmaking takes place on an evenly heated metal plate. The Roland HOTbox™ is designed primarily for encaustic printmaking and is most commonly used for the process. It also creates mixed media drawings on heated waxy paper, encaustic collage work, or impregnates paper or cloth with wax. When printing, the image is transferred by gently pressing the back of the paper with a block printing tool, the baren, or a rag.
Translucency: Clear or lightly pigmented wax makes thin paper or cloth translucent, allowing light to pass through.
Palette: The Roland HOTbox™ also makes an excellent encaustic painter’s mixing palette.
When complete, paper is laid on the plate, and Prints may be “single-pass” calligraphic images, which leave areas of the paper open, or the image may be overprinted many times until the paper is saturated. Overprinting creates layers of color, depth, and translucency.
Fusing occurs as one works during encaustic printmaking, and no additional fusing is needed. The wax preserves the paper, giving it a longer life. If the paper is fully waxed, framing under glass is not required! This allows the beauty of the paper and image to be accessible through alternative presentations.
Encaustic prints are easy to handle, transport, and store because the wax is absorbed in the paper, becoming one with it instead of sitting on its surface. Prints will not crack and may even be rolled. Unlike encaustic paintings, encaustic prints are not susceptible to extremes of heat and cold.
Monotype vs Monoprint? Monotypes are unique images and one-of-a-kind. A monotype is essentially a painting done on a printing plate and transferred to paper. It does not exist on the plate after printing, except perhaps as a light ghost image which may be a “start” for future prints. In contrast, monoprints utilize a stencil or have an element permanently etched or applied to the plate, making the image repeatable in subsequent editions. Other elements, like color, may vary. Encaustic monotypes are quite different than conventional monotypes in other media, and many of the techniques are not held in common.
When printing with encaustic on the HOTbox™, varying the plate surface temperature and the type of paper will create vastly different effects.
Paula has developed many presentation options for paper—including free-hanging paper, installation work, back-lit translucent prints, and prints framed conventionally under glass. There are several ways to mount prints to panels permanently. Paula details many possibilities in her workshops.
Encaustic consists of melted beeswax combined with pigment. Pigment gives paint its color. The molten beeswax is the “vehicle,” just as oil is a vehicle in oil paint, egg is the vehicle in egg tempera, and so on. In encaustic painting, resin is added to the wax when a harder surface is desired.
ABOUT ENCAUSTIC PAINTING
Involves painting with molten wax, pigment, and resin combined. A rigid substrate must be used, or the wax could crack. The wax paint is applied with a brush, a palette knife, or poured. When painting with wax, layers must be fused with additional heat in order to bond. Care must be taken to avoid extremes in temperature (below freezing and above 140 F). Otherwise, the encaustic is very stable. It does not darken or turn yellow. As with all paint, the color’s permanence depends in part on the light-fast qualities of the pigments used. Unlike most other paints, wax is impervious to moisture and insects! It literally “seals” the substrate!
ORDER THE Roland HOTbox ™ FROM VENT-A-FUME Or call/email Jay Tolbert toll free (877) 876-8368; jay.tolbert@ventakiln.com.