During the summer I participated on an online course with Janette Philips (https://www.janettephillips.com) called ‘Wabi Sabi’ which focused on the beauty of the decaying and imperfection. The course involved making collage papers using a geli plate, but it also introduced me to creating waxed papers.  The process involves in taking several layers of thin papers (Japanese papers are ideal but heavy cartridge is not), sprinkling bees wax pellets in between the papers and then ironing the papers so that the wax melts in between the papers. This makes the papers have a translucent quality and this can create beautiful compositions when the paper is layered over other papers, especially if you use coloured wax.  Even though Janette used a travel iron to iron the papers and melt the wax, I did purchase a specialist encaustic iron, so that I can keep it separate from my everyday ironing! Prompted by Janette in the course, I used black Indian ink to create calligraphic marks on the paper before waxing them and I have uploaded the results to show you how this has turned out.