www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com 57
WBM
SIX students with blow torches is a
pretty cool sight.
“That seems to be my popular
class,” laughs Susan Nuttall.
Nuttall is an award-winning artist
whose work is on exhibit in galleries
across the U.S. and at Wilmington’s Gallery of Fine Art.
Her class on texture relief in her Carolina Beach studio
involves an encaustic overlay painted not with brushes
but rather blow torches. Encaustic is a material made
of beeswax, tree resin and colorant. The technique of
painting the material with literal fire dates to ancient
Greece.
“It’s a 3,500-year-old art form I studied in college.
You have to have the proper ventilation, that’s why I can
only have six students at a time. It’s really fun,” Nuttall
says.
Nuttall grew up in a family of artists and was always
encouraged to explore and create. At a young age, she
started adding texture to her paintings out of love for
her grandfather.
“When I was 10 years old, my grandfather went
blind. I started making things three-dimensional so he
could feel my artwork,” she says.
Above: Tranquility, 36 x 36 inches, encaustic on artist wood cradle board. Right column, top to bottom: Susan Nuttall brushes on hot
encaustic medium and preps an art board with a propane torch.
ALLISON POTTER ALLISON POTTER