Gamblin cold wax is why I started investigating oil painting. I was captured by the translucent glow Cynthia Herron was able to get in her abstract landscape paintings. I’ve tried encaustic in the past, which is luscious and magic, but I’m not willing to be around the toxicity of the hot wax. I breathed enough wax back when I was learning about batik.
The cold wax gets mixed 60/40 or 50/50 with Galkyd medium. This helps it dry faster and controls the level of gloss or if you want it slower, you can use Galkyd Slow Dry. This medium solution gets mixed with the paint 50/50. To start. Which gets adjusted depending on the result you want.
There is a lot of other mediums to work with. I have a lot of experimenting to do. The Gamblin website has a lot of fabulous information about what the different mediums do. I’m starting to understand something. But that does not give me an embodied sense of what I am doing. That will take practice.
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I was reading last night about a technique attributed to some of the pre-Impressionist masters (Ruben was mentioned.) Rather than dilute their paints with medium, they lubricated the canvas with medium and painted (rapidly) with undiluted or pure paints thereby preserving the richer colors and avoiding cracking and darkening. So many possibilities!
I was reading last night about a technique attributed to some of the pre-Impressionist masters (Ruben was mentioned.) Rather than dilute their paints with medium, they lubricated the canvas with medium and painted (rapidly) with undiluted or pure paints thereby preserving the richer colors and avoiding cracking and darkening. So many possibilities!
Interesting. Endless things to try.