Elise Wagner Prints

Becoming a Printmaker Through Wax

I became a printmaker through curiosity and experimentation with wax. As an encaustic painter, I began wondering what would happen if, instead of simply painting with wax, I could print from its surface. I started building collagraph plates with wax—carving, incising, stamping, embedding, and creating textures—and discovered that these surfaces could hold and transfer an extraordinary range of marks.

That discovery opened an entirely new direction in my studio practice. Using soy- and honey-based Akua inks, I developed ways of inking and printing these wax collagraph plates, bringing together two processes I love: painting and printmaking. The wax became more than a painting medium; it became a matrix from which an image could be pulled, repeated, altered, layered, and pushed in unexpected directions.

Over time, I refined the process and began hand-formulating my own Print Wax, designed specifically for creating wax collagraph plates. What began as a personal studio experiment has grown into a process I now teach internationally. Print Wax is sold online and internationally, allowing other artists and printmakers to explore the possibilities of printing from wax and to take the process in directions I could never have imagined.

For me, becoming a printmaker didn’t happen by following a traditional path. It happened through invention—by asking what else wax could do, and then following that question wherever it led.