LOCAL artist Anna Donald is bringing fire, wax and a bit of ancient history back to a Fremantle gallery this January — along with free demonstrations, charitable giving and the promise of “creative arson”.

Ms Donald will again exhibit at the Found & Sorted Real Estate gallery space, which principal Denise Muir makes available to local artists free of charge each month.

“Last year, because of her generosity, I was able to donate a share of the proceeds of my exhibition to charity,” Donald said.

On Sunday afternoons throughout January, she will offer free demonstrations of encaustic painting, an ancient technique that uses heat to fuse wax and pigment — a method she discovered in a very modern way.

“I started on encaustics because I had always worked in the usual art mediums, oils, watercolour, acrylic,” she said. “Then, years ago, trawling Youtube I saw someone using a heat gun on a picture, seemingly melting the paint… calling it ‘creative arson’! 

“I was intrigued by the ‘unfamiliar’, and I was hooked.”

The technique, she later discovered, has a long and distinguished history.

“I later learned the technique is thousands of years old; relatively forgotten,” Donald said. “It was much favoured by artists of antiquity, particularly evident in the funerary painting of Roman Egypt… the Fayoum portraits.”

Ms Donald uses the same basic materials as those ancient artists.

“I use, as they did, oil paint, damar resin, and beeswax,” she said.

She said the process was surprisingly forgiving and rewarding, even for beginners.

“Those who come to observe, and for whom it sparks an interest, will be offered free lessons at my house,” Ms Donald said. “In this way I can pay forward the support of Denise Muir.

“Additionally on Sundays, I am raising funds for women in Cambodia by donating proceeds from the sale of my ‘mini-watercolours’,” she said.