in studio

Class Materials: Cold Wax Workshop

instructor: Gwen Day

  • Cold Wax

    • Gamblin Cold Wax medium, your supply fee will cover everyone getting enough to use for the class.  However bring a small container with a lid, like a baby food jar to use at your table.

  • Paint

    • Oil Paint is necessary for cold wax painting. Acrylic does not mix with cold wax. Participants should bring their own preferred and familiar colours. “Artist” quality paints yield the best results. “Student” or “Hobbyist” quality paints contain lower quality pigment, and proportionally less pigment they use colourless filler and other additives. However if you don’t want to start out with a huge investment, do just bring the student quality oils.

    • Basic palette of a warm and cool of all three primaries will work. Here are some suggestions.

      • Red: a cool, clear red like Quinacridone; and a warm red like Cadmium or Naphthol

      • Yellow: cool yellow like Hansa light or Cad Yellow Light; and a warm yellow like Cadmium Yellow Medium

      • Blue: Ultramarine and/or Cobalt and Phthalo Blue

      • A few Earth Colours: these are more Opaque: Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Mars Orange

      • Transparent: Yellow Iron (or Earth) Oxide and Red Iron (or Earth) Oxide, Green Earth or Terre Verte.- not all of these but maybe a few would be helpful

      • Ivory Black

      • Titanium White

    • Useful additions BUT optional are: Phthalo Green or Viridian Green; Cadmium or Azo Orange; Indian Yellow; Naples Yellow; a Violet like Manganese, Cobalt or Quinacridone; Manganese Blue; Indigo Blue; Turquoise Blue; Violet Grey; Zinc or Titanium/Zinc White.

    • I also use Gamblin Solvent-Free Fluid to extend or thin paint. Recommended paint brands are Kama Pigments, Winsor Newton, Gamblin, M Graham – if you have another brand or old oil paints, just bring what you have.

  • Oil Sticks ( I’ll bring some to share as well) Bring them if you have some. But don’t feel you have to go buy them.

    • Kama, R & F and Sennelier make excellent quality oil sticks. Winsor Newton and Shiva make okay oil sticks. If participants have their own, they should bring them. While not necessary, they are fun and useful additions to the technique. Suggested colours as for the oils, above.

  • Tools - Participants should have:

    • Palette (very sturdy and a good size, as a lot of mixing is involved)

    • Palette knives for mixing and paint knives or palette knives for paint application.

    • Brayers or foam rollers are super useful for spreading thin layers of paint and doing

    • Drywall trowels, large painting knives or putty knives

    • Anything else that might spread paint: old credit cards, cardboard, squeegees, brayers, cabinet scrapers, spatulas, utensils... pretty much only limited by the imagination.

    • Tools to make marks in paint such as skewers, pine needles, clay working tools, kitchen utensils, dentist tools., bubble wrap, stencils.. again, only limited by imagination

    • If brushes are preferred, use natural hair brushes (as opposed to synthetic) for washes and scrubbing paint around – older ones are good enough

    • While not absolutely necessary, a huge variety of specific cold wax application tools made from silicon are available and could prove interesting and useful . (I’ll bring some to share)

    • Razor blades or larger blades for the removal process

    • Baby wipes for clean up of your tools

    • Wax paper roll

    • Drop cloth for your tables ( this is really messy)

    • Easels and drop cloth for the floor space

    • Gamblin Solvent Free Gel

  •  Supports

    • It’s most common to work on wood panels, cold wax can also be applied to paper - either oil painting paper or gesso (primed) watercolour paper. I have not found this technique to work well on canvas.

    • We will do some warmup fun abstract the first day on pre-gessod WC paper or Arches Oil paper. Please bring those ready on full sheet divided into 6 squares by tape lines. This primed paper or oil-specific paper should be taped to a solid support. You can work larger if you prefer but these will be our grounds to work from for the next week. If you work fast you may have time to do two sets of these. So bring enough to do two full sheets of primed cold pressed paper. We will work on top of those starts the second day. And if time allows you can make more grounds on wood panels to complete at home.

    • Wood panels for the second day must be already primed with acrylic gesso. Panels may also be under painted with acrylic paint in any colour. I tend to use red or orange acrylic only if you prefer a pre coloured surface. However, plain white or clear gesso is good too. We can talk about that before the second day.

    • I recommend any size larger starting at 12” x 12”. Panels/papers should probably be no larger than 24” x 24”. You can even get cradled wood panels at the dollar store for this type of exploring, just check they are flat and pre gesso them of course. Tape of the edges as well.

    • On the first day we will work on 4 taped off square spaces, together at one time. This allows for free experimentation and gives paint time to dry or firm up for re-working. I highly encourage play and experimentation, so participants can experiment more, and not overly focus on creating a single perfect painting. Also, one can only apply so much paint before it gets mucky, so having several prepped papers gives artists options to make several starts and work further on semi-dry paintings the second day. On the second day, participants may also bring older oil or acrylic paintings that are unsuccessful, or have stalled, and paint directly over them with oil and cold wax. If they are on a wood panel or even watercolour paper.

  • Reference Materials

    • I personally paint mostly landscapes and play with abstract at times as well. Participants should bring their own reference photos if they wish too and are welcome to paint in any sort of preferred subjects or style. The medium seems to lend itself most readily to abstract work, but realism can be achieved.

    • Please bring a sketch book and pencil to do a value sketch and work out the design before your second days creations.

  • Miscellaneous

    • Drawing materials such as graphite sticks, Artgraf graphite sticks or tailor’s chalk, carbon or charcoal pencils or sticks, Woody crayon set, (I’ll bring some to share as well) Bring what you have on hand.

    • Mild, odourless solvent (Gamsol) in a jar and in a spray bottle

    • Containers to hold cold wax (to keep clean and separate from paint on palette) or to make washes of paint to apply with brushes. Plastic take-out food containers are great!

    • Paper towels or rags

    • Apron or messy clothes

    • Nitrile gloves

    • Items for collage (cold wax makes a good adhesive) such as thin fabric or paper; old maps; book pages; decorative papers (should all be fairly thin paper)

    • Any items that might make interesting marks or impressions in wax

    • Material such as newspaper, tissue paper, saran wrap, wax paper, corrugated cardboard, for transferring paint and for pressing onto surfaces then removing, to create texture and/or compression, or for cutting stencils

    • Other media (except acrylic) that are compatible with cold wax, including good quality oil pastel, pan pastels, ink, dry pigment, transfer paper, graphite or charcoal powder, marble dust, sand, dry coffee grounds, etc.

Participants are welcome to experiment with any of my tools for paint application and removal.

Terrific websites for cold wax info: https://coldwaxacademy.com/ https://rcrowell.squarespace.com/

Terrific book on cold wax technique: Cold Wax Medium: Techniques, Concepts and Conversations By Rebecca Crowell and Jerry McLaughlin