How Long Does Cold Wax and Oil Paint Take to Dry?

Many people choose cold wax and oils because the mixture has this sweet spot for drying time. It’s much faster than traditional oil paints but slower than acrylic, so you can work on them for a more extended period and do things that you couldn’t do with conventional oils or acrylics.

Cold wax and oil paint, when used without mediums and a thin layer, will take five to seven days to dry. However, cold wax drying time depends on the amount of wax added to the paint film, the mediums used, the film’s thickness, and the absorbency of your ground. Thick paint layers dry slowly.

How Long Does Cold Wax and Oil Paint Take to Dry? Read on to learn more about cold wax’s drying time and how to speed it up.

Factors That Determine Cold Wax and Oil Paint Drying Time

It can take anything from five days to a week for oil paint and cold wax to dry, but this time frame is by no means set in stone. The time it takes to dry can be affected by the following factors:

• Amount of wax added to the paint film. The more wax you add, the longer it’ll take for your paint to dry.
• Whether other mediums were used in the mix. Mixing in another medium, like linseed oil or turpentine, will also lengthen the drying time.
• The thickness of the paint film. The thicker it is, the longer it will take to dry out completely. If you have a thick layer on your board or canvas, it could take weeks before it’s completely dry!
• Absorbency of your ground. Higher-absorbency grounds will help the paint dry faster than lower-absorbency grounds.

How Cold Wax Transforms the Oil Painting Experience

Cold wax is a medium that is sold separately from oil paints. The oil paint colors are then mixed with this medium on a palette and applied to the canvas with a brush, knife, or applicator.

In cold wax painting, artists mix cold wax with oil paint to make thick, layered, textured artworks. Adding cold wax to oil paint makes it thicker and gives it a matte, velvety finish.

How To Get Cold Wax and Oil Paintings To Dry Faster

So now you’ve got a painting that’s taking forever to dry, and you’re sick of waiting. I hear you! Here are some tips on how to get your cold wax and oil painting to dry faster:

Increase the Ratio of Cold Wax to Oils

The recommended ratio of cold wax to oils is about 50-50, but if you use less oils, you can push your wax ratio up a little bit, giving you a faster drying time. 

You can also try a little beyond the 50-50 ratio, which might speed up the drying a bit more, but you will reach an asymptote where adding more cold wax just doesn’t speed the drying any further.

Add a Little Bit of Marble Dust

Typically, people think marble dust adds body to the cold wax and increases the viscosity, but adding just a little bit of it speeds up the drying, and you don’t have to add enough to change the thickness or the consistency. 

Chemically putting a little bit of that calcium carbonate in there does speed along the drying process for you.

Add Galkyd, Galkyd Light, or Liquin

Galkyd, Galkyd Light, and Liquen are oil painting mediums that you add to traditional oils to change the viscosity, speed up the drying time, and change the sheen when the surface dries. 

Those additives do the same for mixtures of cold wax and oils. So just a little bit of Galkyd, Galkyd Light, or Liquen added to your cold wax and oil mixture will speed up the drying time.

You may try using GAMBLIN ARTISTS COLORS CO Gamblin Galkyd Painting Medium from Amazon.com. This product will not affect the color or texture of your paint, but it will dry much faster!

Last update on 2024-04-12 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Use a Fan

You can use a fan on its own or in combination with other methods mentioned above. It can help create movement in the air around your painting so that it dries faster! Just take a typical box fan and put it on your paintings and let that run overnight.

Using a fan dries paintings quicker by evaporating the solvent. However, it also brings fresh oxygen to the oil paint and wax mixture, which is how that combination of products dries. However, it’s important to note that they don’t “dry”; they cure through oxidation, and bringing extra oxygen to them does speed up the process a fair amount.

Paint at Room Temperature or Higher

In winter, paintings would dry very slowly, even using a fan. This is because most chemical reactions slow, and solvent evaporation slows when the temperatures cool. So if you make sure that the environment you’re painting in is room temperature or higher, things will go quite a bit faster.

I have to add a caveat: oil and cold wax mixtures are sensitive to heat, even more so than encaustic surfaces. When you combine oil and cold wax, it becomes a bit softer and a little runnier; even a little heat can turn that into liquid.

If you’ve ever painted in a place where it’s like 90-95°F (32-35°C), you’ll notice that that mixture of oil and cold wax is pretty runny, so you don’t want to do anything like turn an electric heater on your painting or place your paintings in the sun to dry faster. If you do, you’ll end up melting your cold wax and oil mixtures – leaving you with just a puddle on your painting surface.

Add an Oil Dryer or Siccative

An oil dryer or siccative is a chemical that you add to your mixture of oil and cold wax that typically contains something like cobalt, manganese, iron, and sometimes zinc. These chemicals promote the oxidation of the oils and waxes. 

One of the best siccatives is Grumbacher Cobalt Drier Medium from Amazon.com. This stuff is an absolute miracle for anyone serious about cold wax and oil painting. Just use a few drops for a batch you need to dry and let it do its magic.

Last update on 2024-04-12 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Final Words

Cold wax and oil paint take about a week to dry completely. However, using the right amount of wax, mediums, and good ground will help shorten drying time. The best approach is to plan and allow the required drying time. 

Cold wax and oil paint have so much to offer, but it does take patience. Isn’t that the theme of many artistic processes? There’s a lot to learn about this painting technique, but it’s worth the effort.

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