Diane Reising - Oil & Cold Wax

An instructor of mine back in the day at Washington University School of fine art gave this advice: “Your paintings should always have an element of magic and mystery”. I always like to strive for that in my paintings.

I am a native of St. Louis and always enjoyed drawing and painting. In my high School class I was considered to be one of the two “artists”. Therefore my life has continued more or less in that direction.

I have worked in many different media, even some sculpture that was largely unsuccessful. My favorite medium has always been oil painting. For the last several years that has been oil mixed with cold wax medium. I like this medium because it can be very textural, it is translucent, it can be worked in many layers, it remains workable for a good period of time but dries relatively quickly into a velvety matte finish, and it requires no heat source for melting or fusing the wax.

My paintings are usually abstract or semi abstract. I am a passionate horseback trail rider and my images of the woodsy outdoors are often foremost in my painting. I consider most of them to be environmental abstracts. I rarely start out with any preconceived plan, but that’s usually the result in the end.