Cold Wax Workshop - July 18 & July 19

Cold wax medium transforms traditional oil paint into a luminous, textural surface while significantly accelerating drying time. In this workshop, we move beyond brushes and instead use unconventional tools—Messermeister bowl scrapers, soft brayers, palette knives, and an array of texture-making materials such as bubble wrap, skewers, chains, and found objects—to build rich, layered compositions.

You will learn how to mix and apply cold wax medium, develop surface texture, and work in layers on Arches oil paper. Emphasis will be placed on the power of contrast—exploring relationships between color, opacity and translucency, smooth and rough surfaces, and subtle versus bold mark-making. Each layer becomes part of a visual history, revealed through scraping, pressing, and excavation.

Cold wax medium has roots in encaustic traditions, where wax has long been used as a binder for pigment. Unlike encaustic, cold wax requires no heat. Contemporary artists began widely adopting cold wax in the late 20th century as a way to extend oil painting—allowing for matte, velvety surfaces, rapid layering, and sculptural mark-making. Today, it is valued for its versatility and the depth it brings to abstract and contemporary painting practices.

Diane Williams and Chuck Potter both hold a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art and Consciousness studies from John F Kennedy University, Berkeley, California. They studied at the University of Hangzhou China, incorporating calligraphy, traditional Chinese landscape painting, and Chinese medicine with their western art practices. Their studios are in Crockett, Benicia, and Greenville.
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Websites: www.dianewilliamsart.net‍ ‍www.chuckpotterart.net

Fee: Members $300; Non-members $350

Materials Fee: An additional materials fee of $25 will be paid directly to the instructor. This fee includes cold wax medium, Gamsol odorless mineral spirits, Arches oil paper, newsprint, tissue paper, wax paper, and assorted texture-making objects.

Materials to Bring: Palette knives (rounded or flexible edges; no sharp points), Messermeister bowl scrapers, soft brayers, and oil paints (blue, red, yellow, black, and white (plus any additional colors you’d like to explore)

Where: Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, 1210 Fifth Avenue, San Rafael (at B Street)