Norman Battershill

Some years ago, my kids made beautifully decorated candles with modelling beeswax from Hearthsong; thus I had expectations about what could be done with beeswax, but the children's designs were much more interesting than most of the projects in this book. It was disappointing that the book wasn't more inspirational, but it has a laudable breadth (as the title indicates!) and it's very thin, with literally not a lot of depth. It's very interesting to finally know exactly what encaustic is (painting with hot wax!) and what tools you can use (a travel iron and a hot-air gun), but the author relies a great deal upon semi-accidental effects to create fantastic landscapes: he is craftsmanlike, but doesn't seem to have a complete command of this or the other techniques in the book, excepting perhaps the wax flowers. I will probably get this book out of the library again if I feel the need to do any unusual crafts with beeswax.… (meer)