Melangell Gallery 

With a small, travelling iron Melangell melts the pigmented wax onto the iron itself, and then irons a piece of card, as you would smooth an iron across a handkerchief. 

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The card must be non-absorbent.  Detail she adds with an adapted soldering iron. 

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She also uses a hot-air gun, a paint-stripper!  With the hot-air gun she creates flowers of every colour, sweet-peas, pansies, some in brilliant colours, and some in subtle pastel shades.  The hot-air gun will also move the sky around, - clouds form under its persuasion!

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The soldering iron can also be used as a pen with which Melangell can write greetings and messages in silver, gold or bronze pigmented beeswax for specially commissioned hand-painted cards. 

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Using these rather prosaic tools, painting with beeswax can be a challenging medium.  'You never quite know how the different colours are going to blend together as the wax melts' she says.  'One landscape may have a brooding sun-set, the next will be 'a bright sunshiny day'.  It all depends on how the wax moves and blends as it melts. 

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The element of surprise as you look at what you have produced is one of the most delightful aspects of this art-form. Each picture is fresh and different.  It is impossible for two paintings ever to look the same. Even if someone asks for a painting exactly the same but in a larger size, I have to say no, it’s impossible. The wax is always in charge!’

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One of the fascinating aspects of painting with beeswax is the way abstracts can be developed.  When the wax melts unexpected effects appear, and paintings develop into scenes that belong more to worlds of fantasy than reality.