Anne Hebebrand, a member of New England Wax, shares her process and techniques using cold wax medium.

I often wonder what my painting would look like without using cold wax medium (CWM). I started using CWM about seven years ago and was immediately hooked! A few months ago there was a shortage of CWM, and all art supply stores had it on backorder, putting me in somewhat of a panic mode since I use several gallons a year.

You might wonder why I am so enamored with this medium, which has the consistency of Crisco and is made of a mixture of natural beeswax, Gamsol solvents, and a small amount of alkyd resin. It is a direct way of working and does not require a ventilation system or a hot plate as when working with hot wax. I mix the CWM with oil paint in equal parts and start building up a surface alternating layers of either cool/warm, complementary, light/dark, or opaque/transparent layers.

The tool I use most is a silicone bowl scraper made by Messermeister. It has a flexible precision edge which lets you apply the cold wax and paint mixture across your substrate. Depending on the way you position the bowl scraper, you can either apply thick or thin layers.

The CWM accelerates the drying time of the oil paint. I can put layers of paint on top of each other, and depending on if the surface is dry, semi-dry, or wet, I can achieve a variety of effects by pressing in different textures. Here I am pressing a rug gripper pad using a brayer.

I often use another substrate to draw onto with R&F oil sticks or just roll paint onto it with a brayer and then press it into my painting that has layers of cold wax mixed with oil paint on it. In this photo, you can see me lifting up the paper that I had just pressed into my painting, thus transferring the image from the paper to the painting.

I create a thick surface with alternating layers of CWM and paint. After the layers are down, I create textures by pressing various surfaces into the paint. Sometimes, I use a ceramics carving tool to dig out layers from underneath or scratch lines into the surface.

There are endless possibilities of adding and subtracting paint, and so many ways of working with CWM. I love the spontaneity of being able to change the surface and composition so quickly. Many of the techniques have become second nature to me now. I can somewhat manipulate things the way I want, but the most exciting part of working with CWM is the unexpected surprises that happen, which can change the way a painting is developing and take me into something completely different than planned.