Judy Hilgemann

Judy Hilgemann has been creating art since childhood. She studied Illustration at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design in Halifax, Graphic Design at David Thompson University in Nelson, BC, and earned a Bachelor's Degree in Education from the University of Victoria. She lives with her family in Daajing Giids, Haida Gwaii, BC, with a studio overlooking the sea, and also works part-time for a seabird conservation society. Encaustic painting combines melted beeswax and oil paint or pigments to produce rich colours and wonderful textures. It's an ancient medium, once used to paint portraits on the sarcophagi of Egyptian tombs, and to seal and decorate ancient ship hulls. Judy's encaustic techniques include painting with the molten wax, building up and scraping back layers, carving, and embedding charcoal drawings into the wax.