Glazing with cold wax medium - cold wax and oil techniques

Cold wax glazing technique

Glazing in cold wax medium and oils is one of my favourite cold wax medium techniques. I love how it changes the colours and how the portrait is still shining through. This is the fun part of painting with cold wax and oils, the layering and glazing creates depth and gives a glow to your painting.

Transparent and Opaque

When you glaze over a background, it should be dry to the touch (I like it to be thoroughly dry) and you should use a Transparent Colour. If you don’t know which of you colours are transparent or opaque be sure to check out my YouTube video on the subject!

Watch your values

It is very important to have enough light and dark colours in your background before you glaze over them, if not you will end up with a background that is only in the middle tones. If you are not sure about your values, take a picture with your phone and turn it into black and white, this makes it easier to see the different values in your painting.

Paint Quality

You will get the best effect with the more expensive Artist Grade Colours (Rembrandt, Gamblin, Sennerlier, W&N) because they are more pigmented. It is worth it to invest in one or two of your favorite colours! (Mine are phtalo turquoise and oxide transparent red)

Thin your mix

When I do a glaze, I make a mix of paint, solvent free gel or Galkyd Lite and a little bit of cold wax medium.

YouTube

Below you will find two videos: one where I glaze over a portrait and the second one how I continue using a brayer.

Don’t forget to subscribe to my You Tube channel for more tutorials and hit the notification bell so you will get a message when a new tutorial is live🔔

If you want to know more on transparency of paints, colour values, colour temperature and more, join my Colour Bootcamp to improve your Colour Mixing Skills!