Cold Wax

The one I used at first:- 500g of beeswax pellets, 500g of OMS and 100g of Liquin (any alkyd medium will work). I weigh everything on a scale I can zero. First you melt the beeswax I use a cheap meat griddle that I use for encaustic, you can use a double boiler but the griddle works way better. Then you stir in the alkyd. You should not heat the OMS as it is highly flammable but it's hard to mix in if really cold so best at a warm room temp. This will fill 2 of those large pickle or beetroot jars they sell in Lidls. I warm the jars pour to 300g then add 250g OMS. Stir non stop it goes firm quickly. Keep lid on jar it goes off with time no matter how careful you are but not any faster than the shop bought stuff. You may prefer to reduce the amount made by half.  What I use now:- I make a large batch of encaustic medium using 5 parts beeswax to one part damar resin. I have seen people using more beeswax (up to 8 to 1). 5 parts is my preference for this.  I melt both damar resin and beeswax on griddle together in a metal bowl. Pour into soap moulds or silicone cup cake things through a metal sieve to get rid of bits in the resin. This will store indefinitely. Then when I need cold wax mix. I take one small cake of this encaustic mix and weigh it. I melt it in one of those small metal sweet tins they sell at petrol stations. I put the tin straight on the griddle (get the underneath paper off first!) and I add the same weight of OMS, because tin is hot from griddle the OMS is easier to stir in. Put lid on while hot and it keeps fantastic.   I'm in UK, I buy white beeswax pellets and the resin from a company called Livemoor they have a website and are also on Amazon. They are the cheapest I've found for decent stuff.  If you are only going to use a small amount of cold wax medium it's probably not worth the effort. Encaustic medium is an absolute rip off and encaustic paint even more so, this is why I started experimenting with this. I am really enjoying using this and if you intend to use a lot its a massive saving. You can thin with liquin or OMS when you are using the cold wax if you find it too thick. 

Thanks very much for that, Collette. I’ve photo’d the recipe. It sounds like quite a process the first time ( I’m sure you can do it now almost with your eyes shut, tho’ not recommended!). 

Interesting recipe Collette, if not a bit beyond my abilities… Well done for making your own. In fairness, I don’t use a lot of it but if you’re working large scale and using heavy impasto and need something to bulk it out, this has to be the way to go!

There's a demo for painting koi carp using oils and cold wax with Lisa Timmerman to look forward to in the December issue of The Artist, along with another fine article from Alan!

Yes, I saw that. Looking forward to reading it - and Alan’s of course.

Mine is a test report on a new range of W&N professional synthetic brushes, for both watercolour and oils.  I’ve put them to the test and was really impressed with how they performed.