Which Varnish To Use?

Recently I’ve been trying out different mediums. I love oil & cold wax but am craving a thinner more fluid paint at times. So I’ve been finishing some paintings off with a mixture of oil paint & solvent-free fluid medium. I’m really liking the effects this mixture is giving me. The problem is that this is quite glossy and the oil & cold wax in very matte so I have parts of my painting that is matte and part that is glossy which of course looks weird and I don’t like it. To fix this problem I bought some varnish to cover over the whole thing to even things out.

Typically you don’t have to use a varnish for an oil & cold wax painting so this is all new for me.

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Which Varnish?

I had an old varnish in the back of the cupboard that I never used. I had a new one I bought called Gamvar. Plus I had plain cold wax, which you can use as a varnish. So I decided to do a test of all three to see what I liked best.

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What I Learned…

…always read the labels! I didn’t realize till after I had applied this one that it was an acrylic varnish. Pretty sure now that it isn’t suitable for oil paintings.

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My Favourite…

…was both actually! They were both so similar it was hard to pick a favourite. Surprizingly the cold wax was a bit more glossy than the Gamvar (satin).

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My Take Away For The Week…

…I will use Gamvar when my paintings have a lot of texture. Because it is a liquid it will flow around the texture easier…

…and I will use cold wax on a more regular bases because it’s easier for me to use. Less mess.

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HAPPY PAINTING!