A useful colour enough for common purposes; some painters use it for shades in flesh, but very improperly, for it is a very raw colour crude or calcined, and only fit to be used in drapery or back grounds.
These are all the colours that ought to be used for painting in encaustic, with the pencil; there are a few more that might be employed in this manner, but as they are rather inferior in quality, or only compounds of those already mentioned, I omit them; a few, not commonly used in oil painting that notwithstanding might be used in encaustic, I shall mention under the article of crayons, as they belong more to, and are more useful in that way.
ENCAUSTIC;
OR,
Method of painting with and fixing of the Crayons.
The method of painting with and fixing of the crayons comes not only within the sense of encaustic, but is the very self-same thing. The whole proceeding is founded upon the foregoing principle; the same materials and agent are required.—The only difference between painting in encaustic with the pencil, and painting in encaustic with crayons, consists in employing the colours; in the former—you paint with colours tempered with water; in the latter—you employ, and paint with the same colours dry; the effect and solidity will be equal and the same in both.—
The encomiums I bestowed upon the penciling system, are applicable to that of the crayons; I shall say nothing more; experience will be the best panegyrist. I am afraid crayons, as seemingly the less troublesome, will carry the golden apple; I will not anticipate the decision of the public.—I shall give the hint, and my fellow artists may make use of it as they please.—
As the system of encaustic for the pencil is the parent of that for the crayons, and as both may be happily blended and jointly practised to good purpose, I shall, to avoid tiresomely repeating the same thing over again, refer the reader to the former process whenever similarities of proceeding occur; they, besides commenting each other, will open to the more timorous artist a freer field of action. As I did in the former, so shall I in this, give that method of proceeding, which by experience I found to be the best.