Cold Wax Medium: Techniques, Concepts & Conversations

A great book filled with all the information you need to get you started in cold wax oil painting. I put off buying it because of the price but, I’m glad I did. If you’re looking for a step by step how to you won’t find here. The book exposes the how to leaving it up to you to explore and play with what you can do with the information. It’s the definitive source of reference, you won’t fond this abundance of information in one place anywhere else.

I have to admit, I balked a bit at the retail price and delayed making a purchase once or twice, but now that the book is in my hand, I consider that amount a steal. This is a beautiful and thorough book on the subject. The chapters cover: 1. History of Cold Wax. 2. Materials and Tools. 3. Substrates. 4. Studio Setup. 5. Beginnings and Quick Paintings. 6. Building Layers 7. Visual Language. 8. Your Personal Voice 9. Cold Wax for Representational Art 10. Collage & Assemblage 11. Further Possibilities. 12. Finishing a Work. 13. Featured Artists. The paper and print of the book are high quality. The text is well organized and easy to read. The beautiful photos of artworks feature a variety of styles. This book is a work of art in itself. So glad I made the purchase!

This book is great!!! If you want to know everything about cold wax, stop here! My copy had dog eared pages and handwriting in it. It was supposed to be a new book. For $57, I would have expected it not to be a used book. But I am keeping it, since I think it is a great book about cold wax and oil! Update: The seller refunded me some money since the book was used. That was perfect, and again, I think this book is wonderful!!!! 🛢️

Worth the money, easy to read.

This book exceeded my expectations. I bought a container of gamblin cold wax medium and decided I should read about it to avoid waisting time and materials just figuring it out on my own. This book provides all the info you need to get started, lots of examples from other artists, and even has a great chapter with exercises and questions to help hone your vision and style as an artist. I highly recommend this book to any painter interested in working with cold wax medium.

If you are new to this medium, you will need to take classes to supplement. It truly has everything you need as far as technique, but will not teach you how to do it. I would have liked some examples from start to finish to understand the techniques they are discussing

McLaughlin and Crowell have given cold-wax artists (and artists-to-be) an enormous gift. Impossible to imagine a book that could be more comprehensive, thoughtful, careful, and generously written and presented. This will be an 'everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know" book in good standing for a decade or longer. If you're an artist who is considering this medium: start with this book. It may be the only one you'll ever need. I am SO grateful, and I am so impressed that I signed up for their (very pricey in my estimation) video course (which has yet to be released): a major investment for me that I would never have made were the quality, complexity, and richness of this book any less than it is.

This book is full of beautiful paintings by artists who use cold wax. It is packed with guidelines and ideas on using the medium - it’s almost overwhelming. I did a speed read but have referred to the book many times - sometimes just to look at the paintings. These are new ideas for me and I have started to experiment with this medium to see how I can introduce it into my work.

I wanted a book on this subject and liked that it had examples of artists work -especially realistic, figurative and still life subjects. Although it does have mostly abstract examples - I didn't mind. It is always interesting to see how other artists work ,along side of the facts and techniques. This has everything for me and I hope it will inspire new styles of work from me. Worth the money.

So helpful and informative. My new favourite book!