The ancient philosophy of wabi-sabi honors the imperfect, the transitory and the humble. Cold wax is a perfect vehicle for artists wishing to explore this aesthetic. In this guide, you'll learn how to use this incredibly malleable medium--in combination with oil paint and other mediums--to add layers of texture, atmosphere, depth and meaning to your paintings while developing a more intuitive artistic voice. No matter what your experience level, learning to paint with cold wax will help you approach your work with confidence and a sense of adventure. You will learn a liberating process of texturing, layering, building up and scraping back to create a fascinating "history of surface." Each piece will be the result of elements converging in a one-time-only way, resulting in fiercely original abstract paintings honoring your own process of self discovery. Learn Everything You Need to Know to Create With Cold Wax! • 29 step-by-step demonstrations cover various techniques for working with oil paint and cold wax medium. • Explore dozens of mark-making techniques with a variety of tools, most of which can be found in your kitchen or junk drawer. • Excavate using various approaches for incising, exposing and scraping away layers. • Get inspired as 12 additional artists share their creative processes. Embrace unexpected turns, discover the beauty in simplicity and lose yourself in the process as you join Serena Barton on this creative and spiritual journey.

More than just a technical guide, this book provides comprehensive information for those new to cold wax medium, as well as technical expertise and inspiration to those with experience. Featuring nearly 100 artists from around the world, Cold Wax Medium will strengthen your work and studio practice, suggest new directions, and support thoughtful self-critique.

The ancient philosophy of wabi-sabi honors the imperfect, the transitory and the humble. Cold wax is a perfect vehicle for artists wishing to explore this aesthetic. In this guide, you'll learn how to use this incredibly malleable medium--in combination with oil paint and other mediums--to add layers of texture, atmosphere, depth and meaning to your paintings while developing a more intuitive artistic voice. No matter what your experience level, learning to paint with cold wax will help you approach your work with confidence and a sense of adventure. You will learn a liberating process of texturing, layering, building up and scraping back to create a fascinating "history of surface." Each piece will be the result of elements converging in a one-time-only way, resulting in fiercely original abstract paintings honoring your own process of self discovery. Learn Everything You Need to Know to Create With Cold Wax! • 29 step-by-step demonstrations cover various techniques for working with oil paint and cold wax medium. • Explore dozens of mark-making techniques with a variety of tools, most of which can be found in your kitchen or junk drawer. • Excavate using various approaches for incising, exposing and scraping away layers. • Get inspired as 12 additional artists share their creative processes. Embrace unexpected turns, discover the beauty in simplicity and lose yourself in the process as you join Serena Barton on this creative and spiritual journey.

Embrace tranquil simplicity, rustic elegance, and imperfect beauty. Diane Durston’s meditation on the Japanese philosophy of wabi sabi will inspire you to focus on the blessings hiding in your daily life. Celebrating the way things are rather than how they should be, Durston encourages you to bask in the subtle joys of the natural world and cultivate an appreciation for everyday objects. Step back from the hectic modern world and find enjoyment and gratitude as you explore the ancient and powerful concepts of wabi sabi.

Developed out of the aesthetic philosophy of cha-no-yu (the tea ceremony) in fifteenth-century Japan, wabi sabi is an aesthetic that finds beauty in things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. Taken from the Japanese words wabi, which translates to less is more, and sabi, which means attentive melancholy, wabi sabi refers to an awareness of the transient nature of earthly things and a corresponding pleasure in the things that bear the mark of this impermanence. As much a state of mind--an awareness of the things around us and an acceptance of our surroundings--as it is a design style, wabi sabi begs us to appreciate the simple beauty in life--a chipped vase, a quiet rainy day, the impermanence of all things. Presenting itself as an alternative to today's fast-paced, mass-produced, neon-lighted world, wabi sabi reminds us to slow down and take comfort in the simple, natural beauty around us. In addition to presenting the philosophy of wabi-sabi, this book includes how-to design advice--so that a transformation of body, mind, and home can emerge. Chapters include: History: The Development of Wabi Sabi Culture: Wabi Sabi and the Japanese Character Art: Defining Aesthetics Design: Creating Expressions with Wabi Sabi Materials Spirit: The Universal Spirit of Wabi Sabi

If you have read The House that Pinterest Built, Smart Spaces, The Alchemy of Things, or Elements of Style you're going to love Perfect Imperfect. Wabi-sabi and new creative interior design expressions: Perfect Imperfect is a stunning collection of homes and studios of creatives from all over the world, with thought-provoking text by Karen McCartney and stunning visuals by Sharyn Cairns and Glen Proebstel. Perfect Imperfect takes as its founding principle the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi. Wabi-Sabi advocates the beauty to be found in imperfection, impermanence and the authentic. Importantly this is done without losing sight of the benefits of living in the 21st century; where designers are merging digital technology with the handmade, rethinking how to use space and accommodating the natural world. Creating a new interior design vocabulary: As the collaborative process for creating Perfect Imperfect involved working across continents, the authors created a list of words and phrases that define how to curate the work they include in their stunning book. Their new interior design and interior decorating vocabulary includes terms such as mutability, irregularity, unfinished and incomplete, void, the effects of accident, unpretentious, simplicity, contrasts, and Leonard Koren's idea that 'beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness'. The new words and phrases introduced by the authors define the book's visual sections: - Spirit of Nature - Strange Beauty - Mark of Hand - Deep Shadow - Weathering & Decay - And, Incomplete and Irregular A beautiful, inspirational decorative book: Perfect Imperfect is a celebration of accident, curation, collection, hesitation, collaboration, reuse, reimagining and true originality. It explores an established aesthetic in a new way and embraces current design objects alongside well-worn ones; featuring interior settings that mix comfort, design and an off-beat beauty.