The Michael Harding Miracle Mediums provide artists with a range of five distinctive products for a solvent-free oil painting practice. With appealing qualities such as being cruelty-free, solvent-free, almost odourless, and safe to travel with, it’s safe to say that the Miracle Medium products are of interest to all oil painters. In this article, I’ll discuss their qualities. I’ll detail the finish, drying time, and handling of each one, to investigate how to get the most out of each bottle.
The Difference Between Michael Harding Miracle Mediums
The Miracle Medium Range
Michael Harding developed the Miracle Medium range to create ‘Miracle’ oil painting mediums that are solvent-free, made from renewable plant sources, almost odourless, and safe to travel with. Since his brand’s inception in 1982, Harding strove to create artists’ materials of the highest quality, with respect for traditional processes. His products are developed through research into techniques of the Old Masters and the opinions of contemporary artists alike. The Miracle Medium range represents progress towards the future of safer oil painting. So, it will be interesting to see how paintings made with these products age in the coming years.
The Miracle Medium is an innovation unique to the Michael Harding brand, and therefore a clear ingredient list isn’t publicly available. Harding has given assurance that it is 100% derived from plants and does not contain palm oil. The first product in the range is Miracle Medium (MM0) on its own. The other four contain it as a key component, combined with other familiar artists’ mediums. In this way, MM0 takes the place of a traditional turpentine.
For my first swatch, I applied each Miracle Medium product to my oil painting paper alone, to test for staining, and sheen, and to demonstrate the texture of MM5. To their credit, none of the products left a stain, and are distinguishable by their varied finishes.
Miracle Medium: MM0
Contains: Undisclosed ingredients (Vegan)
The base product of the range is MM0 – Miracle Medium. The other products contain added ingredients and therefore, have different properties. On its own, the Miracle Medium can be used to paint with and as an effective brush cleaner. All of the bottled MM products are available in 100 ml, 250 ml, and 1000 ml. Of the five products, MM0 was the only one to arrive in a glass bottle rather than plastic. The bottles in this range have safety cap lids, which take some effort to open but are very secure for putting into a supplies bag.
On first use of MM0, I found it to be smooth to paint with, and lean in feeling. It’s not as dry as painting with a pure turpentine, since it has a light oily feeling. MM0 is almost odourless, with no scent in the air, and a very faint chemical smell if you really try to smell it. It evaporates from the paint applied without accelerating drying time like turpentine does. Due to this MM0 takes a considerable amount of time to dry down in oil paint compared to turpentine, but was the fastest to touch dry out of the Miracle Medium range. It took about five days for my MM0 swatches to touch dry, but this could vary depending on your surface, the temperature, and the paint you’re using.
For all of the following swatches in this article, I used MM0 as my brush cleaner, and it was very effective. I like that when you dip a dirty brush into it, the paint doesn’t immediately disperse into the liquid, dirtying it. You can clean your brushes, whilst also keeping this cleaning medium mostly paint-free, which reduces the need for changing jars because of contamination. I found it wasn’t harsh on the hairs, but also very quickly removed the paint on them when rubbed into a rag.
Miracle Medium, Oil Paint Medium: MM1
Contains: Miracle Medium and Linseed Stand Oil (Vegan)
MM1 is an oil painting medium, perhaps the equivalent of a classic mixture of turpentine and linseed oil. Since this product is Miracle Medium pre-combined with Linseed Stand Oil, it is technically “fatter” than the MM0, but in usage isn’t thick in handling. It still has a slick quality with an added sheen. If you’d like to increase the oil content of this product, you could easily add some more, or have full control by adding your own ratio to MM0. I think it is very useful to have a pre-mixed oil medium in a portable plastic bottle, since you only have to bring one thing with you for painting on the go.
MM1 is slick and runny, with a light yellowish colour in the bottle which disappears in the paint. It has the very faint scent of linseed oil since it’s an ingredient, which I find pleasant and non-intrusive. It is effortless to disperse paint rapidly and evenly with this product, which would be easy to wipe off in this early stage. Built up in layers this would have a lovely subtle effect, with lots of flexibility depending on how much of the medium you use. It’s recommended that you typically use around 20% of the medium, with 80% paint, and I’ve demonstrated a few different ratios here with the same colour. From left to right they are 5% medium and 95% paint, 20% medium and 80% paint, and 40% medium and 60% paint.
I also decided to directly compare MM0 with MM1, since they are both painting mediums. In general, there isn’t a pronounced visual difference between these swatches apart from sheen. MM1 is glossier to paint with due to its oil content, and this can be seen in the slightly shinier dried finish. MM1 also took a bit longer to dry down than MM0, after a week as opposed to five days.
Miracle Medium, Quick Drying Dammar Glaze: MM2
Contains: Miracle Medium and Dammar Resin (Vegan)
MM2 was specifically created for adding glazes to oil paintings. It is very similar in consistency to MM1 (slick and runny), and is darker in colour in the bottle due to the dammar component. Typically dammar varnishes and glazes give oil paintings a gloss finish, and this is definitely true for this product. In terms of smell, this product has a slightly stronger linseed-like scent than MM1, but is still non-obtrusive.
On the product information, we can see that it contains a “cobalt-free drier”, and that the ratio of 1:4 medium to paint is recommended, adjusting based on the level of transparency and gloss you want to achieve. On the following swatches, I tested a few different ratios, to see the effect on the finish once touch dry. From left to right these are 2:3, 1:4, and 3:2.
All of these swatches took a long time to dry down on my oil paper and I suspect they would have dried quicker on primed canvas or board. They stayed sticky for the majority of the drying time and took over a week to dry down.
Miracle Medium, Resin-Oil Wax: MM3
Contains: Miracle Medium, Linseed Stand Oil, Dammar Resin, and Beeswax
The Resin-Oil Wax of the range is described as a ‘soft painting paste’. It is made with a combination of Miracle Medium, linseed stand oil, and dammar resin (all of the components of the previous three products combined), with the addition of pure bleached beeswax. MM3 has been created to add texture and body to oil paint, offering artists textural flexibility with a satin sheen. Compared to the previous products, this one is the first to have a ‘thicker’ feeling, and is less glossy in appearance. Built up in layers, it would be possible to create a subtle impasto effect with this product. I think in contrast next to glossier areas painted with the other mediums, it could create really interesting visual variety within one painting.
MM3 is similar to MM1 and MM2 in having a light linseed scent, which isn’t noticeable unless you deliberately smell it. The swatches I painted with MM3 took over a week to dry down. This is a result of the combination of oil and wax keeping the swatch malleable for an extended time.
Miracle Medium, Beeswax Paste: MM4
Contains: Miracle Medium and Beeswax
MM4 is the only Miracle Medium product in a jar, which you have to scoop out with a palette knife. Like the other products in the range, it is available in 100 ml, 250 ml, and 1000 ml, and the biggest size comes in a paint tin rather than a screw-top jar like the smaller ones. It has a thick consistency but mixes seamlessly with oil paint. This product does have a slightly chunky consistency, which adds to the impasto effect it gives in painting. This is a brilliant way to extend your paint to build up areas of thick effect, without using up an excessive amount of paint.
For impasto painters, it is comparable to other beeswax and impasto pastes. But with the addition of the Miracle Medium it combines with very little labour, and dries very slowly. This would give impasto painters added opportunities to manipulate their paint for longer. All beeswax pastes will make the finish of your dried painting ‘softer’ than one made with pure oil paint, and this product did take an especially long time to touch dry, after about two weeks. For days after I applied this paste, it felt basically the same as when I first applied it. The texture of my original marks have been completely preserved though, and the finish is full of the initial movement from application.
The Michael Harding Miracle Medium range provides a compelling selection of oil painting mediums to artists, with something to suit all tastes. When combined I think that working between these products on the same surface would bring a lot of visual variety to your work, with lots of room for experimentation. As the drying time is generally pretty slow, these products allow us to slow down and adjust paintings with ease. Since all of the Miracle Medium products contain MM0, it’s also possible to create your own custom mixtures with it. For example with an ingredient not seen in the range like Walnut Oil, or simply your own oil ratio of preference. Overall these products are not only great in quality, but also variety and adaptability.
Further Reading
Non-Toxic Oil Painting With Michael Harding Miracle Medium
A Guide to Oil Painting Mediums
Michael Harding Introduces His 10 New Oil Colours
Artist Insights: Kayoon Anderson
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