التصوير بألوان الشمع ، من كتاب تكنولوجيا التصوير ، د.م محمد حماد

Crayon photography

General word:

In this type of photography, wax is used as a mediator. It is well known that beeswax is the only wax that was used in ancient Egypt and was used in painting pictures or colored surfaces. It was also used as a mediator in the process of fixing the colors of drawings by heat. It seems that the first person to refer to the use of wax in the painting of walls by the ancient Egyptians was E. Mackay. He mentioned eight tombs from the eighteenth dynasty in a good necropolis from the era of Amenhotep the First until the era of Amenhotep the Second, and they contain evidence To use wax with it. We find that in some cases it was found completely mixed with the color, as if it was used as a binder.. In other cases, we find that it was placed as a protective film on the surface of the photograph after its completion. Petri mentioned the use of wax as a filler in the hieroglyphic signs engraved on the coffin of Ramesses III, the red granite now preserved in the Louvre Museum, and in the pictures engraved on wooden coffins as well. It was also mentioned that the use of wax over the colors was observed on the sarcophagus of “Ankh Roy” from the late era in Hawara. And Asperl noticed the use of wax in the Eighteenth Dynasty, as he found it in Amarna. As for Dejarris Davies, he noticed, in what he mentioned about the wall painting in the Buimra cemetery, that there seemed to be a coating of wax on many of the images, but it is not clear if this wax was used as a mediator for the colors, or that it was placed on them later.

The Romans knew the method of using beeswax as a medium in photography, and Pliny described this method and called it “painting using hot wax mixed with color.” Most of them are painted on wood (Fig. 33). However, some of them were also painted on burlap or coarse linen, and were intended to be placed on the faces of mummies (Fig. 34). There are other examples of this type of photography, which is called the handkerchief illustrated, which was found in Deir el-Medina. Small pieces of illustrated fabrics from the Eighteenth Dynasty were also found in Deir el-Bahari, as well as illustrated linen shrouds dating back to the Greco-Roman era. Edgar described the method of imaging with the use of hot wax mixed with Pliny (encaustic painting).
Figure (33) a drawing representing the method of photographing faces that was used in Fayoum to record faces on wooden coffins after coating them with plaster and polishing them so that the colors can be fixed on them.

The colors used in Egypt. He described a bowl from the Coptic era on which were multicolored drawings executed using the wax method, and he said that the colors were mixed with wax and then applied to it with a brush.

The method that is used today is not much different from the old method..as it is mixed with the color powder, molten wax (in a water bath so that the heat does not affect the color), and it is possible to paint with this mixture on the photographic ground after preparing it, using a brush or a hot knife..It also works From this mixture, colors are formed in the form of fingers by pouring into molds, and it is possible to draw with the colors of the fingers on plain paper, such as pastel colors or chalk

radiography floor:

In our historical study, we noticed that wax colors were widely used in Egyptian antiquities in different eras for drawing on different types of floors. They were used on hard stones, on walls, and on wooden coffins, or that were covered with coarse linen cloth, or that were covered with plaster. Among the most famous pictures that were painted with wax colors are the Fayoum pictures, the ground of which we find consists of gesso or
(Fig. 34) An illustrated drawing on Kinan canvas of the face of a young child, which is one of the well-known Fayoum drawings that were prepared with plaster, but it was not painted on with color.

Mixed glue and red ochre, this floor was placed directly on the wood. Or on a layer of linen cloth affixed to a burlap backing with the same previous mixture (glue and red ochre).

Undoubtedly, when preparing the waxwork floor, the following must be taken into account: 1- When using a plaster or stone floor, the surface should be painted with a uniform wax color on which different wax colors can be painted while it is still hot.
2- When using a cloth floor, the cloth can be affixed to a solid floor by means of glue or plaster, then cover its surface with plaster or resin to draw on it as the previous item.. Also, the cloth can be used without covering its surface with plaster in some cases.

3- For drawing on a floor of wood or any similar strong material such as cardboard, hard board and the like, the outer surface can be covered first with gesso or resin so that it can be painted on as the first item, but it is also possible to draw on wood directly without covering its surface with gesso.

4- To paint on a metal ground that can be painted directly with crayons. After preparing the ground, the artist has to prepare the colors needed for his work to complete the painting after he has prepared the suitable ground for his coin.

Wax preparation and use:

Since the wax colors consist of fine color powder mixed with wax, it is possible to prepare them by following the following steps at the beginning of the work:

(a) The color powder to be used in wax photography is prepared so that it is of fine atoms, and it is mixed with a similar amount in volume of good wax free of impurities as much as possible, and by heating the wax melts and mixes with the color (heating using a water bath so that the composition of the colors is not affected by the high temperatures )

Design (B) The colors are used after preparing them while they are heated with a city brush to put the colors in place according to (C) a knife is used in some cases to solidify the color as well as to find an overlap between the colors in proportion to the drawing style..

(d) There are some modern tools that are compatible with the development of modern technology. The modern artist mixes wax with the colored materials on a metal painting plate (pallet) that contains gaps for placing the colors. It is heated electrically on a hot stand to place the pallet on it, and it has a heating device with a temperature regulator. So that the temperature does not rise to the point where the wax burns or leads to the separation of the molten wax from the color that is deposited at the bottom, or the color itself changes due to the high temperature. There are also pallets equipped with a heating device with a thermoregulator, which facilitates the artist's work

(e) Color knives that are heated electrically are now also used, and they have a thermostat as well. Most types of wax in the markets have a melting point of 552-570. (f) After completing the drawing and putting the final touches with the knife, the painting is exposed to a light heat source (such as an electric heater) to create coherence between the lines and harmony of colors in the scene, and it is taken into account that the painting is placed at a reasonable distance from the source.