Last weekend was the Cold Wax and Oil Paint workshop with Mark Russell at Mainstreet Art Center in Lake Zurich, IL.
Mark did a demo that showed us how to mix the wax, the paint and a medium to thin or thicken, and his method of always having a horizon line as someplace for the viewers' eye to rest. Then we all went back to our individual tables to try it on our own as he walked around to see how we were doing and answered any questions. He did a demo each morning and afternoon.
He was most generous with sharing some of his supplies. He had a gallon of cold wax and some scrapers/shapers if we cared to purchase them, and the mediums. he also sometimes drops in some sprinkles of soft pastel that comes in a powder. He puts a fairly large quantity of the wax onto his palette-maybe 1/4 cup in amount, He also put out three different mediums including Galkyd, Gamblin Neomegilp. and Gamblin Solvent Free gel. He uses Gamblin's Chromatic Black because it is the only transparent black oil paint. One of the demos he did was to show the difference in using a transparent black with another color and white, and using an opaque black with another color and black. The difference was amazing, there was a beautiful glow with the transparent black, and we all ordered our Gamblin Chromatic Black right then! In Mark's paintings he layers from 12 to 20 colors of grayed-down paint and put the layers on very transparently. He makes random marks in each layer and puts on paint and rubs it off in some spots to show the layer beneath. Each layer may take a couple of days to dry, so he has a dozen pieces going at one time.
Since our workshop was only 2 days our pieces had about 3 layers. We had to be careful not to get some muddy looks that you avoid by letting the layers dry. I discovered my layers were not as transparent, and would take longer to dry to the touch-three layers times two days to dry each equals about a week to dry...
Here are some examples of my work. I forgot about horizons in some, and mine are more colorful and abstract than his work. I will do more layers over some.
