The acrylic and encaustic won’t mix- Now, you MAY be able to use them together- Encaustic will probably stick to the acrylic, though I don’t know how well. I wouldn’t try putting acrylic on the encaustic, though the other way around might work. The bond between the two will never be that strong, I don’t think I’d trust it!

I think the most important thing about putting acrylic over wax is to make sure that you polish the wax surface first. This should get rid of the “bloom” of poorly-adhered, lighter (in weight) components of the wax and give the acrylic the best chance of sticking.
It may seem strange to advise a shiny surface but I think that’s how it works best.:crossfingers:

As you only applied thin coverings of acrylic, you’re in with a better chance of it all staying together.

I would advise against adding any varnish as that would just add extra weight and inflexibility to the acrylic layer and do nothing to reinforce the encaustic/acrylic interface.

wax over acrylic leads to cracking and peeling down the road ditto for acrylic over wax.

wax over acrylic leads to cracking and peeling down the road ditto for acrylic over wax.

Just barging in here – haven’t posted in here for a few years – but read this and thought I would tell you that I did some encaustic work over acrylic paint back in 1998- one of my pieces sits in my room and it has not cracked – in fact it still looks fine- so I am presuming that it is still archival after 10 years and will survive for many many more decades to come. I live in Western Australia – the thing has survived in our heatwave Summers of over 40 degrees and below zero winter nights – cold for me. I used a marine ply wood support with a gesso coating, acrylic paint and beeswax. I have also used wax crayons and oil crayons to colour the beeswax in some experimental pieces and they are still surviving beautifully too.

Anyway just thought I would share my results so far…..

Cheers Dahzl