egg tempera

[pibb991]

im going to be painting in egg tempera in one of my painting classes this week and was wondering if anyone has any tips/techniques they could share?

[Fipse]

Do you want to make "real" egg-tempera yourself and need a recepture?

Basically you´re using the yellow part of the egg and mix it with linseed oil and add pigment. A usual mixing is 1 part egg and 4 part oil. The more oil ou´re using the longer the color needs to dry. You can add a little curd soap solution. The color you get with this is UV-resistant and will darken a little with the time

Furthermore it depends on what ground you´re working. If youre doing a fresco you can mix complete eggs, milk and the pigment. I heard that this recept is very good with chalk.

Of course the ground should be primed - a traditional way is to use a mixture of champagne chalk and animal glue.

The result should be a semi matt finish. You can have it more luminous (?) if you´re finishing it with lin seed oil finishing.

Hope this could help you (even with my reduced vocabulary ;))

Fipse

(who´s using egg-tempera for historical reconstructions)

[Farvus]

I was going to make new topic but found this one. So far I've been painting only with tempera and I was curious if there were some tips on the net. Found only this website - http://www.eggtempera.com
Not very useful stuff to me.
I don't have to mix eggs with pigments beacause I buy ready tempera paints in tubes. I was told that for practice purpose (beacause I'm still beginner in painting) the cheap way to prepare ground is just by painting it with emulsion paint.

My question is can I use acrylic techniques for tempera painting? Tempera dries quickly just like acrylic paint so maybe these two are similar. Are there some big differences between those two kinds of paints?

Farvus.

EDIT: Heh. I didn't notice that the website about tempera has some forum with lot's of information :P.

[Sems]

farvus yes there is
Tempura is a more thin kind of paint alot like very fine oils yet acrylic is a very plasticy kind of paint and acrylic will never dull in colour or such but due to acrylic being so plasticy it can at times be aweful to work with if thickly applied.
A thing my teacher found out is you can mix acrylic with a small bit of detergent and water (more water than paint, or until a consistancy you like) and you will get the same affect as a watercolour paint but the good thing is it will still be fairly stable in never fading where as I know people who have painted a painting in water colours and a few years later there will be absolutely nothing left on the page it has faded so much.

You will find different paints will work better for different things, and youll find different tricks for using them all. Tempura and acrylic are fairly different in my opinion but try them both out and see what you like.

[Elwell]

My question is can I use acrylic techniques for tempera painting? Tempera dries quickly just like acrylic paint so maybe these two are similar. Are there some big differences between those two kinds of paints?
There can be some overlap in technique, but tempera has a different optical quality and feel under the brush. If you can, pick up a copy of New Techniques in Egg Tempera (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0823031705/002-0286976-8557660) by Robert Vickrey. He's a master of pushing tempera to it's limits while staying true to it's characteristics as a medium.

[figure2]

If you can, pick up a copy of New Techniques in Egg Tempera (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0823031705/002-0286976-8557660) by Robert Vickrey. He's a master of pushing tempera to it's limits while staying true to it's characteristics as a medium.I believe that book is out of print but if you can pick up a copy it's well worth it. Vickery has an interesting way of working in which he is seemingly not married to the drawing. In the demonstrations in the book he will start with what looks like a loose smudge in an area of his painting in progress and over successive steps will become a beautifully painted figure/machine/building, etc. His painting style is very crisp & sharp.

[Elwell]

Yeah, it's out of print, but fairly inexpensive used copies are pretty easy to come by.

[DavePalumbo]

funny story: back in school, I had a Materials and Techniques instructor who prefered egg tempera (do not ask me why) for painting but warned us to store them in not only a light safe location, but creature safe as well. He'd recently been sorting through old work and found that insects had completely "eaten" the images off a numper of his stored paintings.

[dbclemons]

...I don't have to mix eggs with pigments beacause I buy ready tempera paints in tubes. I was told that for practice purpose (beacause I'm still beginner in painting) the cheap way to prepare ground is just by painting it with emulsion paint.

My question is can I use acrylic techniques for tempera painting? Tempera dries quickly just like acrylic paint so maybe these two are similar. Are there some big differences between those two kinds of paints?

Farvus.

EDIT: Heh. I didn't notice that the website about tempera has some forum with lot's of information :P.

A reverse approach is more likely, as it's possible to use a tempera technique with acrylic by painting in thin layers, but that's about as close as one can get. There's some similarity in blending, but the acrylic polymers are better at that than the egg is, in my opinion. Tempera blending seems more like drawing than painting to me. You can't build an impasto surface in tempera without it cracking, or cover a large area easily with paint; not a problem with arcylics.

The best ground for tempera is chalk and hide glue which is smooth and absorbant. It's also meant to be used only on firm surfaces like panels.

Commercial tempera does not necessarily contain egg, most likely starches, oils, or gum, since real egg would spoil. A drop of oil of clove or vinegar is a good preservative for hand-made tempera.

[Farvus]

I'm bumping this thread again beacause I forgot to thank you all for those answers. I also wanted to write about something funny that turned out.

I recently went to art shop to buy some gouache paint. The shop-assistant smiled and told me that actually it's the same as tempera.
Then today I searched in google for some information about it and it turns out that this tempera based on arabic gum is actually gouache.

So the paint I was all the time using for few years has tempera written on the label but it's not egg tempera. Why I didn't figure it out earlier? :P I know it sounds obvious but when I was searching on the net for some information about painting techniques, I could type gouache and find much more useful stuff.

Thanks again.