Beeswax Impasto Medium is a traditional oil painter’s medium that is used to thicken paint. You can buy it ready-prepared or make your own. Vincent Gordon takes us through the steps of how to make it yourself.

The paints at the top are soft and buttery. The paints at the bottom have been mixed with beeswax impasto medium (shown on the right) and are stiffer and will hold sharper edges.
Vincent Gordon on How to Make Impasto Medium
In the late 1500s we first notice a deliberate use of the raised mark and what is considered the first steps towards an impasto style of painting, in the works of Titian and other painters of the Renaissance period. The technique found wider use in the drama of Baroque paintings beginning in the 1600s with works by Rembrandt and other artists of that period. Fast forward then to the late 1800s with the onset of Modern expressive forms of painting and the preoccupation with emotion expressed through surface quality and colour. Impasto painting really begins to establish itself in the works of Van Gogh and then the artists of the Expressionist movement. Since then impasto painting techniques have been widely used by modern and contemporary artists.
Beeswax Impasto Painting Medium
Impasto medium is a paste that is added to oil paint to allow a raised brushmark on the surface. The traditional impasto medium is made with beeswax. It will thicken and stiffen oil paint to retain brush and painting knife marks, extend paint, and add a waxy matt sheen to your colours. It demands a confident and bold approach to mark-making.
The following formula will make a soft, easy to control impasto medium:
Formula
100g Bleached Beeswax pellets
100ml Damar Varnish 5lb cut
200ml Turpentine (rectified, double-distilled or gum)
Natural or bleached beeswax can be used. I would recommend using bleached as it is much paler in colour and will not discolour lighter paint shades in the way that a yellow, natural beeswax will. You should also obtain the beeswax in pellet, granular, or flake form, for ease of use when weighing and dissolving.

Natural and bleached beeswaxes available at Jackson’s.
Clockwise from left: Handover natural beeswax granules, Cornelissen natural beeswax pellets, Jackson’s Bleached Beeswax Pellets, Sennelier bleached beeswax pellets.
The 5lb cut Damar Varnish will act as a strengthening and wetting agent in the formula, helping to prevent the beeswax from drying out and cracking after applying. Damar Varnish 5lb cut can be bought ready-made or see my article How to make Damar Varnish to make your own. The term ‘5 lb cut’ means ‘five pound cut’, ‘lb’ from the Latin standing for ‘pound’, an old abbreviation that is still widely used in the USA among other places and is a designation of the concentration of resin in the varnish.
Method

Any airtight container that can withstand solvents will work.
Shown left to right: Studio Essentials Plastic Screwtop Jar, Studio Glass Bottle, and an empty jam jar.
1. Weigh out the beeswax pellets or granules and place them in a large glass jar, (you will need the lid).
2. In a separate vessel, ie. mixing jug, combine the damar varnish with the turpentine and stir thoroughly. I use an old, unvarnished paintbrush handle for stirring. Avoid brush handles that have been varnished or lacquered with a colour, as these tend to peel and flake after a time and may contaminate your medium.
3. Pour the damar/turps mixture into the jar containing the beeswax.
4. Stir everything together until all the beeswax pellets are fully wetted and the damar/turps mix starts to turn the milky white colour of the beeswax. This change of colour tells you that the turpentine has already started to break down the wax pellets. You may need to stir the mixture for 2 to 3 minutes to achieve this.
5. Place a lid on the jar and leave overnight. Stir again thoroughly on your return the next day, being sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the jar. Repeat this process over 3 to 4 days.
6. The beeswax is fully dissolved when you cannot see any individual pellets remaining whilst stirring, and the mixture is a smooth white paste. It will be thick enough that your stirring implement will stand up in it. Make sure you check the bottom and sides of the jar as these will be the last areas to dissolve.
When you think the medium is ready to use, scoop out some of the impasto medium from the side or bottom of the jar using a painting knife and spread it thinly along the length of a palette knife, a 1-inch wide knife is ideal for this. If the medium looks smooth and lump-free then it is fully dissolved and ready to use. If you see any undissolved wax pellets on the palette knife then you need to stir the mixture again and leave for another day.

Spreading the medium along a large palette knife is a good way to inspect it to see if the wax is fully dissolved. It should be smooth and free of lumps.
Using Your Beeswax Impasto Medium
Mix the impasto medium with your oil paint on a palette in any quantity, but bear in mind that the more medium you add, the less colour strength you will have as the amount of pigment is then dispersed in a larger amount of material. This also increases the transparency of the mixture. A 50/50 mix of paint and medium is a good place to start, you can then either increase the amount of paint in the mix to bring the colour strength back up or increase the amount of medium to further extend and thicken your mix. Always be patient when mixing a medium with paint on a palette, the more thoroughly they are combined, the more consistent your paint finish will be.

A light turquoise paint was mixed from white and Phthalo Turquoise. The left side is neat paint and while it does have body, notice how soft the edges are. The paint on the right side has had impasto paste mixed in to thicken the paint. You can see that it is stiffer while still being creamy. Notice the slight lightening of the colour. The paint will also be more transparent in thin layers.
This formulation of impasto medium is smoother than some other beeswax oil painting mediums. For instance, compare the smoothness of the mixture above to the graininess of the Gamblin Cold Wax Medium mixture below.

Gamblin Cold Wax Medium is a ready-made beeswax medium but it is made with alkyd resin and odourless mineral spirits instead of damar resin and turpentine. Notice how it has a grainier texture when mixed with oil paint. The paint on the left is neat and the paint on the right has been mixed with the Gamblin Cold Wax Medium.
Shelf-life, Drying time, Varnish, Stability
Over time your medium will stiffen in the jar, so it is best used within six months, though if the jar is well-sealed I have had it last much longer. If the medium has thickened but is still usable, try adding very small amounts of turpentine to your paint/medium mix on the palette whilst blending to loosen it up.
The drying time of your paint when mixed with impasto medium will depend on how thickly it is applied and to what substrate. Low ridges of say 2mm applied to a canvas support should be dry in around two weeks. Thicker applications will skin-over in a similar amount of time, but may remain soft underneath this skin for several months. Eventually, after at least six months, the paint and wax mixture will dry hard but remain flexible regardless of the paint-to-medium ratio.
If you wish to alter the sheen of your fully-dried impasto painting, then applying a varnish is a possibility. A spray varnish is a good choice because a brushed-on varnish may pool around the ridges of raised areas of paint, which may then run or create an uneven varnish finish. If you do use brushed-on varnish, then during varnishing, carefully check all the raised areas of paint and gently brush out any pools of varnish that may have accumulated.
If you wonder about wax being sensitive to heat, it is reassuring to know that the dried surface of your painting will be stable. The melting point of bleached beeswax is around 65°C, and even higher when blended with oil paint, so your painting will not be vulnerable to the heat of normal environmental conditions.
Ingredients and Equipment at Jackson’s
- Beeswax pellets and granules
- Damar varnish 5 lb cut
- Turpentine
- Empty plastic jars
- Empty glass bottles
- Palette knives
- The Oil Painting Department at Jackson’s
- Readymade impasto mediums
More Oil Painting Articles on the Blog
- Vincent Gordon’s earlier article with the recipe for making Damar Varnish
- Sally Hirst Compares Cold Wax Mediums
- What is Dark Yellowing?
- Nadja Gabriela Plein: Material Sensation
- Solvent Safety Guide: Taking Care When Working With Solvents
Postage on orders of art materials shipped standard to mainland UK addresses is free for orders of £45 or more.
Q: MAKING BEESWAX IMPASTO MEDIUM
FOR OIL PAINTING, can I substitute Liquin
for Damar Varnish? (as I have lots of
beeswax and lots of liquid, but no Damar
Varnish)
Hi Julienne
Yes you can but you will get different characteristics. The Gamblin Cold Wax Medium uses an alkyd medium (similar to Liquin) instead of damar and it looks different, but works in a similar manner. You might want to experiment on a small batch to see if you like it.
In this earlier post on Cold Waxes, Sally Hirst gives her recipe using alkyd medium.
It sounds like it might be a good way to use up your excess wax and alkyd!
Hi. It wasn’t possible to find cold wax
medium in my country. I got it in liquid
form. I don’t have damar either. Can i
only use 100ml liquid wax together with
100 ml turpentine mix them together and
leave it overnight to achieve cold wax
medium ready to use with my oil paint?
Hi Dini.
Julienne was talking about Liquin, an alkyd medium.
It sounds like you are talking about something else, a liquid wax.
Can you tell me more about what that is, then maybe I can help you.
How to make beeswax impasto medium
Yes, that could have been the headline!
Thanks
I always put the jar of beeswax and turps
in a pan of water and heated it up to melt
the wax rather than leaving overnight and
draining etc.
Is there any advantages/disadvantages in
my method?
BTW I never brought the water to the boil
iirc 60-70c it hot enough.
ps It smells WONDERFUL! lol
Hi Paul
There are a few methods for making this. This one uses the turps to dissolve the beeswax. There is no draining, the amounts in the recipe all melt together and unify.
Your warm water bath does sound quicker. But for this recipe it is unnecessary. I’ve only seen heat used when you are trying to amalgamate wax with linseed oil which won’t mix without heat. In this recipe the turps melts the beeswax smoothly.
And I would worry about heating turps, it will evaporate like crazy and those fumes are not good for you. The flash point for turpentine is 35C. I guess this no-heat method might be safer and simpler, but a bit slower.
Does your mixture get harder when it cools, using your method, or stay soft? What is the working consistency?
Hi.
When I heat your formula (instead of
turpentine I use odourless turpentine
oil) and bring it back, the medium is
very soft after few days.
Č
Hi
I don’t recommend heating this mixture.
It requires genuine turpentine to melt the beeswax and damar properly.
hey, this is lovely post. Very informative.
Hello, The only damar that I could find notes
that it contains turpentine. Does that sound
right or should I be using less turps in my
mixture?
Thanks!
Hi Lucy
You don’t need to add more turpentine. The recipe calls for Damar Varnish which contains turpentine, yes, but it is accounted for in the recipe.
You could also make your own varnish.
HOW TO MAKE DAMMAR VARNISH
Thank you for all your posts. They are
very helpful for me too
I’m very glad you have found them helpful! Helping artists is my goal.
I tried this recipe but my medium is very
water like consistency however I put exact
amount of ingredients.so now what should I
do?should I add more wax
Hello
That amount of wax should dissolve in that amount of liquid to make a thick paste. Let me ask you a few questions to figure out where it went wrong.
Did all the wax dissolve or is the wax still in pellets in the bottom?
How long did you let it sit for? Have you stirred it?
Did you use the exact 3 ingredients or did you make a substitution?
Did you use exact measurements?
Let me know and we’ll try to figure out what went wrong.
All the wax is dissolved completely.
It took 4 days.
Yes ma’am I have used exact amount
But still consistency is very liquidy
Hello.
What were the exact ingredients that you used?
If I add more solvent to the homemade wax
medium will I get a more fluid medium……will
it still be stable? I’m after a fluid Matt
medium.
Hi Frank
You can add some wax medium to a fluid oil painting medium to get a fluid medium that is more matt.