The pillow that I made :)

[Paul Henry]

That reminds me a little of when we use wax resist in ceramics to build up complicated designs or layers of color.

On the candles:

There are techniques we use in ceramics (Mishima) where a piece is coated with a colored slip or wet clay then designs are carved into the piece removing the colored clay with the carving. A candle might be dipped in a differently colored wax and the designs carved through the outer coat to reveal the design in the different color of the wax beneath.

The inverse technique (Sgraffito) is to carve, coat with differently colored slip then when it is dry enough, trim off the outer layer leaving the colored coating in the carved areas , but I don't know if there would be a way to do that in wax.

actually you have those the wrong way around.

Mishima is where you carve a design first in the clay and then cover it with slip , which you then remove carefully leaving the coloured clay in the recess of the carving. The carving is normally done when the clay has reached leatherhard condition, but the scrapping back is usually done when the clay has dried.
Sgraffito is carving/scratching through a thin layer of coloured clay revealing the clay layer underneath, it's exactly the same technique as "scrapper board"