Ezshwan Winding 2025 Encaustic Workshops: An Honest Review

You know, there’s a certain kind of magic that hangs in the air when beeswax melts. It’s an old, earthy scent, really, something that feels like it connects you to a long line of creators. For years, I had just admired encaustic art from a distance. The way the colors have this soft, deep look, almost like you’re peering through honey. Anyway, I felt this pull to try it myself, but honestly, working with hot wax and a torch felt a little bit out of my league. So, after a lot of looking around online, I pretty much decided on one of Ezshwan Winding’s workshops for 2025. What I found was, well, so much more than just a class; in a way, it felt like being invited into a whole different creative headspace.

Finding My Way to Wax and Heat

Alright, so I was honestly a little nervous showing up on the first day. The pictures of other people’s work were so good, and frankly, I had never even touched a block of encaustic medium before. My artistic background is mostly in acrylics, which are, you know, completely different. This art form, on the other hand, felt very serious, with its roots going all the way back to ancient Greece. As a matter of fact, that history is part of what drew me in; I mean, there’s a real feeling of permanence to a work made of wax. Instead of just jumping into techniques, Ezshwan actually started our first session with a talk about this history, and you know, that really set the stage. She made it feel less like a scary, new thing and more like we were, in some respects, becoming part of a long-running story. The entire process seemed a bit less scary after that introduction, actually.

The Studio Atmosphere: More Than Just a Place to Paint

The space where you work really changes how you feel, doesn’t it? Well, Ezshwan’s studio is basically the perfect example of this. It wasn’t one of those super clean, sterile art rooms; instead, it had this lived-in, creative energy that was, frankly, very comforting. You could tell that a lot of art had been brought to life in that room. The light, for example, streamed in through these big windows, and it made the pots of colored wax look just like jewels on their warming palettes. I mean, the whole place smelled incredible—that mix of sweet beeswax and the slightly sharper smell of damar resin. Ezshwan herself, you know, is a very calm presence. She moves around the room, offering a quiet word here, a small bit of advice there, and somehow, she seems to know exactly when you’re feeling a bit stuck. It is that kind of personal touch that made the whole experience feel supportive instead of just instructional, you know.

Frankly, it’s that moment when you first fuse a layer of wax with the heat gun, and you see the colors melt and shift together. That part of the process is, honestly, just pure alchemy.

What You’ll Actually Do: From Basic Layers to Advanced Tricks

Okay, so what do you actually do all day? At the end of the day, it’s a very hands-on experience. We started with the real fundamentals. Obviously, safety first—Ezshwan is very clear about how to handle the hot tools correctly. Then, you know, we moved on to getting the wooden panels ready, which is a surprisingly big part of the whole deal. Applying the first few coats of clear wax is, in a way, a bit like a meditation. You just brush on the hot liquid, fuse it gently with a heat gun, and repeat. It’s pretty calming, actually. From there, things got more colorful. We learned how to mix our own tinted waxes, creating a palette that was pretty much our own personal style. Ezshwan showed us how to build up translucent layers, which is really how you get that feeling of depth that makes encaustic so unique.

Later in the week, we got into the fun stuff. For instance, we started playing with scraping and incising lines into the wax, and then filling those lines with oil paint for contrast. It’s a very satisfying thing to do, to be honest. Some of the techniques we explored included:

Embedding materials: We practiced with putting things like papers, threads, and dried leaves right into the wax. You just have to be careful with the heat, obviously.
Image transfers: This was really cool. We learned how to transfer a photocopy onto the wax surface, which pretty much opens up a lot of possibilities for mixed-media work.
Texture building: Basically, Ezshwan showed us a few different tools and methods for making all sorts of surfaces, from super smooth to really chunky and dimensional.
Mark-making with heat: You can, like, use different heat tools to create very specific marks and effects in the wax, which was something I’d never even thought about.

A Typical Day with Ezshwan

So, a typical day usually began with coffee and a bit of chatting, which was a nice way to ease into things. By the way, Ezshwan would often start with a demonstration of a new technique or concept. She’s really good at explaining not just the ‘how’ but also the ‘why’ behind each step, which actually helps you remember it. For example, she explained how a certain kind of brushstroke will give you a smooth finish, while another might create more texture on purpose. After the demo, we’d have a pretty long stretch of time to just work on our own pieces. This, for me, was just the best part. You could really get lost in your own little world, with your warm palette and panels. Meanwhile, Ezshwan would be making her rounds, sort of checking in on everyone individually. She never hovered, you know, but was always there if you had a question or, like, if you accidentally scorched your wax a little bit, which definitely happened to me.

Lunch breaks were, honestly, a great time for connection too. We’d all sit together, talking about our frustrations and our small victories. In fact, one of my favorite moments came from a “mistake.” I had laid down this beautiful, smooth blue layer and then, whoops, I dripped a big blob of red right in the middle. I was pretty upset for a second. But then, Ezshwan came over and said, “Okay, well, what can we do with that?” Instead of trying to fix it, she showed me how to use my torch to gently feather the edges of the red blob into the blue, creating this really amazing, organic-looking shape. It ended up being, you know, the most interesting part of the entire painting. In that case, it taught me a lot about just going with the flow, which is sort of what this medium is all about anyway.

Is This Workshop the Right Fit for You?

So, at the end of the day, you’re probably wondering if you should sign up. To be honest, I think this workshop is fantastic for a pretty wide range of people. If you’re a complete beginner like I was, you could be in a better place. The instruction starts from zero, and honestly, the atmosphere is so encouraging that you never feel out of your depth. For someone who already has a little bit of encaustic experience, this could also be a really good fit. Ezshwan has so many little tips and deep knowledge that, you know, you’re pretty much guaranteed to pick up something new that will refine your practice. She kind of lets you work at your own speed.

The person this might *not* be for is, arguably, someone who wants a very rigid, step-by-step painting class where everyone makes the same picture. This experience is really about exploring the medium and, frankly, finding your own voice within it. It’s messy, it’s experimental, and sometimes, well, things don’t turn out as planned. You have to be okay with that. As a matter of fact, the course fee covers most of the basic supplies, like the encaustic medium and access to all the tools and heated palettes, which is a huge plus. You just need to buy your own wooden panels to work on, which gives you control over the sizes you want to create. Honestly, the investment felt completely worth it for the amount of hands-on learning and personal guidance I received.

Key Takeaways from the Workshop:

You will get a very solid grounding in encaustic safety and fundamentals, so it’s actually great for beginners.
The learning environment is incredibly supportive and inspiring, largely because of Ezshwan’s calm teaching style, you know.
It’s more about personal exploration and learning techniques than it is about a paint-by-numbers project; you definitely have a lot of freedom.
You’ll get hands-on experience with a really wide variety of methods, from layering and embedding to incising and image transfers.
Frankly, you’ll probably leave feeling much more confident and inspired to continue working with this amazing, ancient medium on your own.

Read our full review: [Ezshwan Winding Encaustic Workshops Full Review and Details]

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