Not that I am getting tired of ooey, gooey cold wax paint. I love it. It’s not that I am frustrated that all I have to do is look at the paint and it gets all over my clothes. Frosting cakes should be this easy. I don’t mind the turpentine smell, which is like inhaling pure creativity. What gets me is the drying time. I mean, it takes a whole week to dry! And even then it’s like working through the stages of grief: first stage is wet, second stage is sticky, third is tacky, fourth is cloudy, fifth is “Don’t try to polish it yet”, and sixth is “wow, it finally happened. I want a sandwich.”
I ask you, why did I go into encaustic in the first place?
Stating once more for the record: Wax isn’t just for breakfast anymore. You can use it hot or cold. You can use it hot AND cold, together in the same piece. I think of cold wax as a member of the family now, a cousin who shows up three or four times a year with pizza and beer. Really great to hang out with for an evening, lots of yucks. Then encaustic wax comes home from work, looking all luminous and dry, and I really want to put a lid on cold wax for a while.
But just to show how much there is to love about my cousin cold wax, here are some luscious snaps taken by The Theory. The medium recipe is the one I wrote about on Monday. To that translucent, silky-smooth butter, I added some oil paint:
Beeswax and damar varnish cold wax medium mixed with Alizarin purple and zinc white oil paint. Yum.
Blueberry frosting? No, cold wax paint pigmented with ultramarine blue. Photo by The Theory who is always ready for closeups of art materials.
What’s next? Sun-thickened linseed oil on Friday, aka better living through chemistry. But then I’m diving back into the studio to prove all those doubters wrong.
Drying time, drying time, drying time…whine, whine, whine. How did you survive as a adolescent girl with nail polish, (lets count both fingers and toes) and drying time. I know that washing hair and bathing are a pain because of the drying time. I am actually thinking of moving to Mexico to reduce the drying time for my coats after if rains. But, I digress. What is life trying to teach you, my little patient one? Forget the quick and easy, the instant gratification. Oh, I guess that applies to me to. Never mind, I withdraw my comments.
Moving to a retirement community in Mexico? And you said you’d never retire. Can I have the boat?
Sold the boat, bought a pair of sunglasses and a Speedo (and sunscreen).
It’s everyone else whose going to need the sunglasses, dude.
[...] The cold wax board prep guide will be in the book, but for now you can grab a downloadable copy from the Free Box on the right-side column, or from this link: Preparing Encaustic Supports with Cold Wax. Here’s photo from an earlier post where I discuss cold wax paste: [...]