Cold Wax with Kym B

Kym Barrett is a talented, and prolific, local artist that I am happy to say has become a friend over the years. I recently bought this wonderful painting at her exhibition, 'Flow & Ebb', at the Regional Arts House in Brisbane.



POND - Kym Barrett

The exhibition is on until 3rd September, so check it out if you are in the area.

Kym has another exhibition, 'Wax & Wabi-Sabi' running concurrently (didn't I say she was prolific) at the Noosa Regional Gallery until 23rd August so you'll have to move fast to catch it.  Both shows are VERY worthwhile.

I was fortunate to join Kym at a cold wax demo and workshop at Noosa recently. It was a beautiful day and we set up outside the Gallery.

Kym's bag o' tricks

                                     Mine

A happy group awaiting instruction

Firstly Kym gave us a demo of her colour and cold wax methods, involving much layering.... adding, removing, and making marks.

We then had some practice with mark-making, using charcoal and paper, doing 12 very fast impressions of our surroundings, with as many varieties of marks as we could make with our limited resources. 

Sorry, no photos of these......this post would go on forever.

On to the black and white cold wax method....our beginnings were demonstrated.  We had to tape up 10 small sheets of watercolour paper.  Then, with brush and ink (I used sepia) QUICKLY made some large expressive marks over the lot. On top of that some other quick charcoal marks, over which we spread a smooth layer of beeswax.

This was left to dry while we lunched in the sun.

Then, on to the final stages.

With powdered charcoal mixed with wax we made more marks. 

Variety was the key...large, small...smooth, textured...soft  & hard edges. We used tools of all kinds...brayers, brushes, sticks, even a pot scourer, to add and remove the wax.

A great learning exercise for me.  I tend to overthink, and deaden, my work.  This really made me loosen up....a little.

My efforts by end of day were thus.... probably not in correct order, or particularly good images.  My scanner washes darks out and I try to correct, but don't do a very good job.

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I lost most of my sepia marks (on purpose) because I didn't like them, instead of working with them. There's much to learn with this process...so I'll probably do it again.

Perhaps bits of these exercises will end up in collages, or on Xmas cards.  You never know.

Thanks Kym...it was such fun... and quite a stretch.