Cold Wax and Hot Messes
I love trying new things. Typically I do it when I'm feeling stale and bored with my work. It's hard to be a full time artist. One would think it's nothing but play, but that's far from the truth of the matter. The truth is, I have to hit a home run about 99% of the time because I'm commissioned and the client expects nothing less. So being "creative" kind of goes out the window. I have to paint in the way I know will give me a winner. That's why I love plein air painting so much. If I'm not doing a competition, I can paint whatever I want to in any style I want. I can even mess it up so much that I feel like it needs to go in the trash bin. That's what we all need to do now and then not only as artists, but also as people. It's ok to really mess up. Or to play in the mud knowing you're going to come out at the end with mud on your face.
So I tried a new medium called "Cold Wax" for my oils. Wow, what a hot mess it was on my first attempt. I couldn't apply any of the techniques or styles I know work. I couldn't even blend colors the way I normally do. In fact, it was kind of like the first time I finger painted as a child. It was pure excitement and wonder! My biggest mistake was that I tried to paint a scene (the one above) when I should have just messed around with the paints in an abstract manner. But that's just so like me; I always feel like I have to "produce" something.
If you've never tried cold wax...I'll give you a little description of the experience. You mix half and half oil paint with the wax and it gives you double the paint. If you mix too much wax in, the paint goes transparent. When you apply it, you can't use a brush because it just skips across the surface. So you have to use a pallet knife or spatula. Since I'm someone who uses paint sparingly, this was a shock to my system. You also can't mix on the canvas, which was another shock. And when you go to move things around, the color on top sometimes disappears and you end up with the color underneath, or visa versa. You can continue to move stuff around and add and subtract until suddenly, you can't. It starts to set up and dry. Then you have to add paint thinner and that's when a whole new thing happens...uncontrollable and unpredictable deconstruction.
In the end, the oranges and yellows were the exact color that came from the tube. There was no softness or subtle blending possible. In fact, subtle was a word you could not apply to any part of this painting! It was bold and out there. It was terrible and wondrous. It was not what was in my head when I started to paint. The image forced itself on me amidst a flurry of knifes and spatulas. It was a battle between me and the wax. And neither one of us won this battle.
But I could see the possibilities...and that's why I'm sharing this. Watercolor is a maddening medium as well. It does unpredictable things until you figure out how to predict its behavior. I'm certain that cold wax is the same. Although the pigment is oil, this is definitely not oil painting. It is wax painting and that's a different animal altogether. Kind of like thinking you've just bought a kitten and you get home and open the cage and a tiger comes out. Tigers are amazing, but not if you're unprepared to handle them.
The best part of this whole thing is that I got to play. It was rough play...but it was still playing. I'll try it again after a rest. Maybe I'll study what others have been able to accomplish with the medium. Maybe I won't. But I know the can of wax will be up there on the shelf waiting for me for the next time I'm feeling stale and needing an adventure.
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