Try using pigment powders between layers, add in small glass beads or collage materials to build up a sculptural piece full of texture. Annie O'Brien Gonzales is a professional painter, teacher, and author from Santa Fe, New Mexico. The only solution is to spray with either GOLDEN Archival Spray varnish, which will sort of fix them in place, OR Sennelier's fixative, item #21700-1004, but very expensive – over $20. Follow Annie's instructions below to try out this technique! Unlike other Gamblin painting mediums, which increase the flow and gloss of oil colors to varying degrees, Cold Wax Medium makes oil colors thicker and more matte. I've tried using cold wax over oil pastels before and I'm not going to say it didn't work, but it wasn't ideal. You can even use cold wax as a final 'varnish'. This medium is the best of many worlds, expanding the ability to work with oils and achieve luminous layers, quite different from all the other painting mediums I've tried in the past. I love the way Cold Wax spreads like butter on bread. Try using silicone bowl scraped, pastel shapers, squeegees, rollers and soft rubber brayers to see what kinds of textures you can create. The difference between CWM and encaustic is that CWM can be malleable without heat; the Gamsol is the heat substitute.
This was very easy to do as the wax softens when working into it. Best cold wax: top product pick. Drawing with the stick feels more controlled compared to painting with a brush or palette knife, some artists who are used to pencil or pastel drawing prefer using oil in stick version for this reason. The core composition is closest to that of a hard pastel (with a potentially higher ratio of wax binder in the lower quality brands). Use a sgraffito-like technique to carve patterns and texture into the paint layer. Zest It Cold Wax Painting Medium is manufactured in the UK from beeswax mixed with linseed oil and dammar, which is a tree resin. The energy that swirls in the strokes is an added bonus, thus the name "Red Wind". There is no need to add varnish; the wax acts as a sealant. The use of Cold Wax in art goes back thousands of years to cave painting where animal fat was combined with dry pigments such as ochres and charcoal to create wall paintings. Using Cold Wax helped me to move beyond conscious rendering of abstract ideas into a way of working that felt much deeper and more intuitive. You could create a thin layer with a scraper tool. I mixed the cold wax into the oil paint using a palette knife to work the two together.
Use alone or with our range of Zest-It cold wax solvents and powders to create layers of texture in your oil and mixed media paintings. They glide across the substrate like a stick of butter and are intended to never dry; remaining smudgy and blendable perpetually. From the artists who wrote the book on Cold Wax Medium, Jerry McLaughlin & Rebecca Crowell demonstrates some of their Cold Wax Painting techniques in the video below. Texture items: fabric, thin collage papers, plastic fruit bags, etc. How to mount paper on wood panels. These include oil paint that has good quality pigment with no fillers, dry pigment, a rigid support and a little linseed oil to help with flow. Do I need to work 'fat over lean' with cold wax painting? Cold wax paintings can range from those that use minimal amounts of wax to those that are predominantly wax.
To retain the matte finish of the paint, instead of making paint more fluid by adding linseed oil, add some solvent like Gamsol instead. Cold wax mediums contain solvent, so they should be used in a properly ventilated space. It will give cold wax a smoother feel; the consistency is like jelly, but it holds its shape. Just like an oil painting, an artwork made using oil sticks should be allowed to dry and cure for at least six months before applying a final varnish. When mixed with oil paint, it thickens colours and gives them a matte finish. Cold Wax Medium can be used in all kinds of wonderful ways, but the first step you will need to take is learning to mix your paints with the medium. Because of this many artists choose to lay down their initial layers of colour with a silicone spreader, painting knife or brayer. Turn the painting upside down and tap the back side. The solvent in the mix dries by evaporation, leaving a hardened film.
Lay the items on the surface, and use a brayer to impress the items into the wax, or apply a thin paint/wax mixture over them. Apply cold wax in short sharp strokes with palette knives, or spread the wax across the canvas for even coverage. Avoid a framing nightmare... 4x6" 5x7" 8x10" 9x12" 11x14" 16x20" 18x24". You may need to fix your drawing before applying the cold wax medium to avoid moving the pigment.
Let the it dry throughly before laying down layers of CWM. Adding too much can make the wax 'crumbly' and unstable, discretion is needed! And it is wise to not mix the different brands of CWM, since the brands have different ingredients. There isn't one way to use CWM. Only when we dig below the surface do we find what lies underneath and all that it took to create something so complicated, rich, thought provoking, broken and beautiful.
I added analogous colors. However, the surface must first be primed with acrylic gesso or oil primer to prevent the oil leaching into the support and compromising the longevity of your artwork. Alkyd or resins like damar can be added to wax to increase the flexibility of the dry paint film. If transporting or storing work, the surface should be protected by glassine paper, a smooth, grease-resistant paper, to prevent damage to the fragile pastel film. The wax is sticky, so the pigment will adhere quite well. Wait for it to dry and leave it for a matte finish, or buff after around 6 hours for a satin finish. Create a freestyle abstract.