Sarah
Stanley Winter Light, oil and cold wax medium on wood panel, 8×10in (20×25.5cm)
Sarah Stanley considers herself to be a hobby artist, although ‘it is a hobby that pays for itself,’ she says! ‘I’ve been a member of Stafford Art Group since 2011 and enjoy the interaction with like-minded people and the demonstrations. I have won several awards in their annual selected exhibition and have taken part in the Broadway Art Festival Paint Off in 2020 and 2021, winning 5th and 3rd place. I like to experiment with different methods. Alla prima painting is my usual way to work as it is necessary for location painting. But even with this I try different surfaces, mediums and tools, such as a palette knife. Winter Light is a studio painting, created from a gouache plein-air sketch as the inspiration made on a walk near to where I live at Tittensor, Staffordshire. I have recently been trying oil paint mixed with cold wax medium. I prepared a smooth wood painting panel with a primer and gesso and left it to dry for a couple of days. I made a light grey colour with some oil paint and mixed it with an equal amount of cold wax medium, using a palette knife to mix and apply this to the panel. A printing roller was used to smooth it out and create an even thin coating. I then left it in a warm place to dry for a day, before mixing oil paint to match some of the colours of my sketch, adding cold wax medium to each pile of mixed colours. I then used my painting knife to apply the mixes and to move it around. I removed paint with my knife if an area wasn’t working. I applied more paint, then flattened the paint with my palette knife and allowed it to dry between layers. I like the texture the cold wax medium gives the paint. It also speeds up the drying time and gives an even, matt finish and eliminates the need to work fat over lean!’ TA