Wild Work in Oil and Cold Wax

Shelly's painting in oil/cold wax/graphite on Arches Oil Paper

Wild women met recently at my studio for "Expressive Abstraction in Oil and Cold Wax." They produced wonderful completed work and work in progress. 

Very early stages left to dry.

All the students were experienced painters but had not used cold wax before. They had to learn to let layers dry and not to overwork the pieces in the early stages, which we all tend to do when we're starting out in this medium.

The trick is to work on a lot of pieces at once to let layers dry and also to become looser.

By the second day, all the artists had loosened up wonderfully and explored a lot of options in color, composition, incising, scraping back, and texturing. Thanks to all of you for a wonderful weekend!

Adding collage elements using cold wax medium as the glue

Adding and spreading paint and wax with a palette knife

Using a brayer to spread paint and texture

 A beautiful and dynamic finished piece.

Closeup of above

More of the lovely finished pieces from the class:

Detail from the piece at the top of the post. The piece was inspired by a painting of a young woman carrying another on her back.

Gold transfer leaf makes this piece sing, and the next few as well.

Covering over a piece in progress, then scraping and incising back produces complex simplicity.

Lively works in progress:

Art of Life Regroups

The women's art group, over which I loosely preside, met again for the first time since June. It was a delight to see old friends and welcome two new members. We had artists working on collage, acrylic painting, mixed media, and oil and cold wax painting. The studio was a beautiful mess. Love it!

Here are the results: Some are finished and some in process. 

Sarah's Oil/Cold Wax Piece

Connie's Acrylic Painting

Oil and Cold Wax in Process

Acrylic Painting in Process

Susana's Mixed Media Piece in Process

Iris' Image Transfer and Collage Piece 

Iris and I Worked on this Together, Using Her Photo

Carolyn's Painting in Process

Cindy's Mixed Media 3-D Piece

Weathering the Storm with Visual Haiku at Art and Soul

This student was inspired by the storm outside!

The last class I taught at Art and Soul Retreat in VA Beach was after we'd learned that Hurricane Joaquin was not going to hit us. Therefore we were free to enjoy the exciting storm on Chesapeake Bay that we could see in the wall of windows in our classroom. We were inspired by haiku and also by the excitement nature provided for us to watch.

Each student had four flat birch panels to work on with collage, acrylic paint, and re-inkers. Despite this being an evening class, so short, all pitched in and created exciting and unique work. Thank you all for such a great evening!