Manchester artist Hélène Farrar is teaching a one-day workshop on encaustic painting at the Harlow Gallery in Hallowell Sunday, Jan. 13 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

Encaustic art is made using a beeswax-based painting medium. Wax is heated to a liquid form and applied quickly to a rigid support to maintain its liquid form. Artists fuse the top layer of wax to the previous with a variety of tools such as a high temperature heat gun, torch, and iron. Encaustic paint is made up of beeswax, pigment and damar resin. 

Learn how to layer, fuse and make a variety of marks in this medium. Learn painterly approaches, plus how to etch and scrape into the surface. Take your flat collections such as your drawings, collected papers, pictures and embellish them into the wax. Leave with two small finished paintings and artistic inspiration. 

Class time will be divided between demonstrations, individual work time and discussion.

The tuition cost is $50, plus a $25 materials fee. To register, call the Harlow Gallery at 207-622-3813 or email kvaa@harlowgallery.org.

Farrar has taught and worked in the visual arts for 15 years while actively exhibiting in commercial, nonprofit and university galleries in New England and England. She operates in her studio “Hélène Farrar Art” in downtown Hallowell

Farrar's work has been exhibited widely in Maine and has been accepted into regional and international juried exhibitions featuring her encaustics and oil works. 

She is currently represented by the Flat Iron Gallery in Portland, and the Three Graces Gallery in New Hampshire.