Once I have an idea for a piece , I start painting on numerous panels and begin to compose the arrangement . I develop imagery in successive layers of pigmented beeswax , with each panel containing between 25 or more layers of paint that may build upon or suppress foundation layers . I continually adjust marks , shapes and colors ; build , layer , scrape and heat surfaces ; and fragment and rebuild images , until each panel serves the totality of the piece . One advantage of the encaustic technique is the flexibility it affords to adjust pigment load , and thereby control the relative opacity or transparency of the medium . In many instances , lightly pigmented wax obscures earlier levels of the painting , like a membrane that separates our present from a past that can only be accessed through channels of memory — clouded , incomplete , yet central to any possible understanding of who we are .