Mastic and Wax Media
Jacaranda Painting on Location
Kula, Maui, Hawaii

This is an amazing media. It's so quick to set so it's easy to layer upon. But at the same time, it will wipe clean and change colors if you take two or three wet strokes over the set paint. This is because of how the set color re-dissolves so quickly.

My paintings are a series of mistakes that I am continually correcting until I'm finished.

Set and dry are two different things here. Usually the setting is after the dry to the touch, like in fresco. Here with wax and damar it is quickly dry to the touch but very re-dissolvable. This makes it very easy to work into or on top of the painting. Easy to change or wipe clean.

When oil paint starts to set, you leave it alone. Painting on top of it will cause uneven shrinking and cracking will happen.

Wax and mastic share this lifting technique with balsams. With cera colla, ammonia will lay down the color, water will pick it up like an eraser.

All mastic and balsam resins dry differently than oil. Their film dries as a whole, throughout, without a skin, and can be dissolved with a solvent. Because of this fact, and the fact that they are sticky, stand, balsam or resin layers can be applied over any stage of drying paint. Oil only paint, may chip off of an under layer that was not completely dry because it will still shrink more. Oil is not a good binder by itself but mastic, stand oil and alkyd oil media are.

9:15. Today is sunny, I think I can get farther ahead by changing the painting to a sunny day. The sky is now blue. That is going to make it easier then when it was light gray.

First I'll wash the painting with water, no problem, all the protein dust absorbed water and flushed right off. Go for the gold!

Using turpentine and a little stiff brush brought me back to white. Similar to acrylics when I paint two coats of white on mistakes or changes.

Pigments so far are.. Opaque Lemon Yellow, Old holland Indian yellow org/side and brn/side, the brown side is for greens, the orange side is for reds. Blocks Venetian red, Naples yellow deep by Mussini, Quin. Magenta by Daniel Smith, Diox. purple by Liquitex, Ult. blue deep by Mussini, Thalo blue by Grumbacher, Thalo green Y/s by Grumbacher, Old Holland opaque yellow green.

Dick Blick has a chisel brush Series 66, #2 by Master Stroke.
Isaby has a Extra long and full sable liner, #8, a truly great brush.
Another great brush I'm using in this painting is the Langnickle "Shortie" Series 64, #4. This is a round ferrule with chiseled flat end hair. This brush is no longer available but I found a new supplier in Australia I want to check out.

Well I bought what they had but the hairs were just a little too long, great for sign painting though.

This morning I was on location by 6:30, I changed all the colors and shadows to fit this morning view, the roof in the background was still in shadow. Flowers above my eye level showed a bottom shadow, below my eye level had no shadow showing.

By 1:40 pm this afternoon the painting was put away and everything was cleaned up.

2:00 pm I was at a new location and painted this Jacaranda 5.5x7.5 oil painting with Windburg's Oil Media. This is made of stand oil, damar and wax. I wanted to compare the two, one medium with oil and one without. This is mostly a knife painting. The two scribed barbed wire lines will be rust colored to tie in with the warmth of the tree trunk. Some of the branches will be colored also, when it's dry.