Wax Mediums

[Sharon Knettell]

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[David Clemons]

A thin wax paste (beeswax softened 20-30% with solvent) will not lift a dried layer of oil paint, I can tell you from experience. It's not liquid enough to do so. I've made a sort of retouch varnish with wax by adding diluted damar and it works fine; although, it's rather soft and doesn't offer much physical protection like a final resin varnish would. You cold also make your final resin varnish less glossy by rubbing on a thin wax layer. Commercial "mat" varnishes have wax content, sometimes a synthetic or mineral wax.

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Sharon, I use wax sometimes to have a thicker paint. I am experiment with having a range of differently applied paint in the same picture, and adding wax medium is simple and can be used only in some areas without problems.
I also used it to scumble and I like the effect very much.
I generally don't varnish my painting so I can't really say much on using it as a varnish but David's post is very clear. One of my tutor said that he thinks it might attract dust in the top layer.
Ilaria