Yesterday I finished another painting for the Gex book. Walking uphill on one of the main streets in Gex, there are wall-to-wall two to three story buildings hugging the sidewalk on either side of the street. So it’s quite unexpected when, on the left, a small square opens up, and it’s possible to see the Jura mountains in the distance and in the square there’s a fountain with running water.
I finally succumbed and tried Corel Painter 11, and this scene is painted with Corel Painter watercolor brushes. It is really a very nice way to paint digitally. I don’t find it easier than painting with normal paint brushes and pots of paint. In fact for the style I’ve used in painting the Gex fountain, I find it’s much more time-consuming to paint digitally than with watercolor on paper.
This is the photo used as reference:
Gex Town Fountain
The ability to experiment without worrying about the cost of materials or if the painting will be ruined, allows much more room to let it flow and try different things. I tend to spend more time going after colors and light that I want to see in the painting.
It’s very nice not to have washing or clearing up afterward. This makes it much easier to start painting even if there is only a short interval of time available for painting. I’m much more inclined to turn on the computer during those times than I am to dig out all the paints and brushes for a painting session.
When painting digitally, I paint pretty much how I would on paper, building up from washes to more detail. I saved backups when I finished an area, so it doesn’t demonstrate much gradual buildup within any given area, but below is a sequence showing the progression in terms of which sections I tackled in what order (click on image to enlarge).
I highly recommend Corel Painter 11 for anyone wanting to paint digitally. It’s potential seems limitless, and it’s very interesting to experiment to see what can be done with it.
Do you like digital artwork, or do you prefer traditionally created artwork? Which do you prefer to see? Which do you prefer to create? Why? I’d love to know your thoughts.
Egg tempera was a primary method of painting until it was superseded, in the 1500s, by oil painting. Egg tempera paintings are extremely durable, and don’t darken with age as oil paintings do. Evidence of egg tempera’s long-term durability can be seen in ancient paintings we still have today. It was used by ancient Egyptians on sarcophagi and portraits; it was used by the ancient Greeks; all the surviving panel paintings by Michelangelo were painted with egg tempera.
DweezelJazz Art Egg Tempera Gallery Page 1
A few days before Christmas I experimented with my egg tempera paintings to see how durable the method is when painted on paper, a process I’ve described in detail in How To Paint With Egg Tempera. I tested around 7-10 paintings, ranging in creation from several years to 6 months ago.
I found that for any painting over a year old it was possible, without damaging the painting, to:
rub a dry cloth across the painting
wipe the painting with a very heavily, dripping wet cloth
I wouldn’t recommend rubbing hard or wiping the painting with a very wet cloth in general, but it was a great way to find out if the paintings were durable, even if it was a somewhat risky test!
I also pushed my nail on the surface of the paintings and dragged it a centimeter or so, and to my amazement, no paint came off. There was a small indentation on the painting where the nail had pressed hard into the surface, but it was otherwise untouched and the image was unblemished.
I discovered that it isn’t possible to do any of these things, without damaging it, to a painting that is less than six months old. Within six months of completion, it’s very easy to scratch or remove paint from the surface by rubbing it hard.
Luckily, it’s easy enough to fix scratches or blemishes if an accident occurs, by applying more paint, so that no damage or touch up is visible.
This turned out to be a very good thing one time when Jazzy, our african grey, decided she wanted to take a visit to the Maldives beach and finally (after many foiled attempts) managed to land on the painting when I wasn’t looking.
Jasmine took her job seriously as DweezelJazz Art mascot and she evaluated each painting. She clearly had her favorites, because she would sometimes become obsessed with getting close to some of the paintings in particular, the Maldives beach being one of them! She skidded across the surface and created quite a bit of damage only a week after I had finished the painting. Fortunately, I was easily able to fix it and there are no traces of birdie tracks in the sand.
The length of time it takes for an egg tempera painting to become durable will vary depending on environmental conditions. The best approach is to allow a year for the painting to ‘cure’ and set into the durable, long-lived, bright images that egg tempera paintings are renowned for.
I received an email from Juliet, an egg tempera painter, asking a really good question about framing and I thought I’d answer it here. Here’s the question:
“I’ve been using egg tempera for a little while now (for religious icons) and I’m really hooked on the medium. I’ve been casting around for a suitable support for more secular pieces which is less laborious than preparing gesso boards, and your way of adhering paper to glass is really interesting. Do you find you have to frame your glass-mounted pieces afterwards or can they be hung as they are?”
The great thing about egg tempera paintings on paper adhered to glass, is that it allows for many options when it comes to framing. If you’d like to find out how the paper is adhered to glass, and why, the process is described in “How To Paint With Egg Tempera“. I’ve framed egg tempera paintings successfully in the following ways:
Hanging the glass just as it is with the painting on it (the glass used in this case is tempered glass, 4 mm thick).
Framing the painting in a standard frame, in the same manner as an oil painting is framed.
If the glass is tempered the painting can be hung directly on the wall just as it is. The “Maldives Palm” egg tempera painting is hanging on our living room wall. The painting is hung with a fixture attached directly to the glass just like mirrors are often hung. There’s card backing on the back of the glass. You can see the result in the photo below.
A traditional frame could be added around the glass in whatever sizing appeals. The flexibility of how these paintings can be framed leaves options open for a person to find whatever appeals to them. As you can see with the “Aguille du Midi” painting, it’s now possible to add a backing and/or a conventional frame around the painting.
I originally used the same glass that is used conventionally in picture frames; this glass isn’t tempered and is thinner than the tempered glass. I used wheat paste to glue the 300 g/m2 watercolor paper to both sides of the glass in order to strengthen it. As the paintings become larger in size, care does need to be taken because the glass does flex when it’s in larger sizes. However, they are robust and don’t bend if they’re not set down on uneven surfaces.
“Portrait of a Horse” is one of the paintings done on normal glass and it has paper glued on both sides of the glass. It has been propped against the wall on top of a cupboard with no ill effect. It could be framed in a traditional frame right over the edges of the painting with a solid backing to give it support, like the “Purple Flowers” painting shown here:
Another demonstration of the robustness of the paper on normal glass with paper adhered to both sides of the glass is the painting of the “Fisherman’s Bastion“, Budapest, which you can see in the photo is sitting on an easel without a solid support behind it. This painting is 14″ x 18″ (36 x 46 cm), which is fairly large. It has been on display long-term like this and it works just fine.
If you want to hang the glass just as it is, then it’s most definitely best to use tempered glass because this doesn’t flex even at larger sizes. I’ve put a lot of thought and experimentation into determining the best ways to frame the glass to ensure that the painting remains in perfect condition on a rigid surface. If you have any questions or suggestions for other ways to frame the artwork, I’d love to hear from you.
This seems to be the time when ebook readers and very small portable computers are starting to really catch on, not to mention all the ways it’s possible to read content on smart phones.
I recently read an article, The End of Book Publishing As We Know It, on Michael Hyatt’s blog. In the article there’s a video showing a slim, portable, color-format reading device Time Inc has developed for magazine content. It allows for audio, video and normal text print content to be accessed very easily all in one place at the touch of a finger.
Time (no pun intended) will tell just how much these new devices and combinations of media will affect the conventional publishing industry, but it is already true that the publishing industry is experiencing tremendous changes.
There are many new opportunities available for the individual in this evolving technical environment. Software applications at relatively low prices have made it possible for individuals to learn how to accomplish things that used to only be possible for experts with very costly equipment. One such area is the ability to print a book using, for example, Adobe InDesign or even one of the applications made freely available by online book printers such as Blurb.
The tricky part that comes with having direct access to performing these highly specialised tasks is that in order to create quality products there’s a great deal for an individual to learn. It’s crucial to assess which facets will be important to forwarding one’s own work. There are a variety of reasons for limiting just how much you intend trying to learn to do:
learning a little of everything results in doing most things in a mediocre manner because there just isn’t enough time to truly develop more than two or three things fully and deeply
time spent on one thing means less time spent on another which could be more important in achieving your goal
you might end up spending much more time than you intended doing something you really don’t enjoy very much
So it’s really important to pick and choose what to learn, finding the balance that allows you to move forward with your goals, but doesn’t drain too much from your primary ambition and passion.
My primary passion is stories. I think I could do without many things, but not stories, and stories with pictures, well, I just think that’s the ultimate. I love movies, but have no interest in being directly involved in the film industry. So I’ve been concentrating on understanding what it is about the visual elements that go into art that make it successfully communicative, and what elements are important to a story to make it really interesting and exciting.
I’m still experimenting with just how my passion will express itself in my art. To try to get closer to this, I’ve been delving more deeply into color theory, composition, technique, and all types of art from fine art to illustration, cartoons, animation — everything I can set eyes on. I’ve experimented with digital painting, and more watercolor and egg tempera painting techniques.
I have also been studying writing, visual storytelling and story-boarding, and am writing a couple of fiction stories to see where they go. For the more practical side of how to communicate the art, and possibly stories, during the last year I have completed courses in all of the Adobe Creative Suite applications. My year’s subscription with Total Training will end on January 1st and so this spurred me to complete the InDesign and Illustrator courses during these last few weeks. I have also studied web design, print design, composition, layout, and a little about typography.
So that’s it for the heavy-duty studying for me, thank goodness! Now I need to develop my artwork so that it expresses my passion – and I’m not quite sure what that is yet in terms of style or subject. I think it might be bound up in expectation, and if I can let that loose, my style should just be there. When I write I have no expectation and my writing style seems to be there just simple and unsophisticated, for better or worse. I haven’t yet reached that with the art.
So here’s to the New Year, bringing new discoveries and challenges. If you have any comments on what you think it’s important to learn in today’s environment, and/or if you have any advice on reaching your own style, I’d love to hear them.
I’m trying my hand at pen and ink sketches. I have tended to avoid drawing people, so that’s mainly what I’m concentrating on just now. It’s turning out to be a great deal of fun, not to mention challenging.
I choose scenes from dvds for movies we’ve watched recently, so that I don’t spoil a movie for the next viewing of one that we haven’t seen in a while. (I love movies).
Sketching from dvds also provides a perfect opportunity to study the composition and layout of scenes and shots. How does the camera focus on the person in the scene? What is shown in addition? Where are the people placed and where are they relative to one another? There are so many tips to learn from directly just by doing this, which is great for honing skills to create works of art that excel in visual storytelling.
Here’s a closer look at the top sketches… (As usual, you can click on the images for larger view.)
In the past, I have often thought I should sketch, and on a couple of occasions I made feeble starts at it and gave up. This time I’m going all out – and the experience is so much fun that I can surely recommend doing it. Even my previous short forays into sketching just for the sake of sketching have contributed to helping me get going this time. Every little bit helps….
If you were hesitating about whether ‘to sketch or not to sketch’, give it a try!
Just let go, don’t worry about bumbling it (you can always hide those – I do) and go for it. I’d love to hear from you if you sketch, or if you have any thoughts or suggestions on sketching.
Here are a couple more watercolor paintings for the Gex book. The first one shows the side of a house with roses growing along the wall beside a window.
I really liked the wild, free, rugged beauty the place has. It’s part of an old farmstead in the countryside on the outskirts of Gex. In a previous post, Walking In The Pays de Gex, France, you can see photos taken in the same area, and there’s also a photo taken on this same farm of a tractor with ducks and geese all round it.
The painting below is of the Marie, or Town Hall, of Gex.
I love the variety of colors used to paint buildings in this part of France. The buildings are often painted in pale pastels, and occasionally, as in the case of the Town Hall, they’re a bit more vibrantly attired.
There are many many views from the shores of Lac Leman. Town views, beach views, home-front views, country views… There’s no end to the variety of scenes that can be found along the lake. It’s approximately 73 km (45 miles) long and 14 km (8 miles) wide. It is the largest body of freshwater in continental Europe, and 60% of it belongs to Switzerland, with the rest belonging to France.
There are quite a number of beaches along Lac Leman. There are sandy ones,
A Beach on Lac Leman, France
…and then there are more pebbly beaches. You can see the Jet D’Eau in Geneva, in the distance:
Distant view of Jet D'Eau, Geneva, Switzerland
Many homes have gardens that end right at the waterfront.
Corsier, Lac Leman, Switzerland
Some of the homes are large and private, in beautiful spots.
Lac Leman, Switzerland
The towns along the lake often have many yachts and boats moored at the water’s edge.
Ouchy, Lac Leman, Switzerland
There are also many quiet coves with piers for docking the boats.
Cove at Bellerive, Lac Leman, Switzerland
It’s a great place to sit and watch the water. Last week I painted an egg tempera painting (10″ x 18 “) of one such tranquil scene, “Rocky Shores of Lac Leman”, where the water seemed to laze under the rays of the sun.
Last week I painted a scene of a set of trees that I’ve been intending to do for a couple of years now! Finally it has been done. Here it is (to see larger click on image).
These trees are in a National Trust site in England, near Bath, at a place called Stourhead. I loved the look of the tree trunks close up, and how very alive they look, along with the ground around them. They seem immense, powerful and yet very inviting and warm.
Hi, I’m Nat Wildish. There are a number of ways to paint with egg tempera. Below, I explain and demonstrate how I paint with egg tempera. If you’d like to jump to a specific topic, here are links which take you directly to them:
I hope that you’ve found this information on egg tempera painting helpful. You’re welcome to look around the DweezelJazz Art Gallery to see more egg tempera paintings by Nat Wildish. And if you have any questions I’d be glad to hear from you, just leave a comment! Cheers,
What Is Egg Tempera Painting?
Egg Tempera is an old painting method. It was used by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, and also in the Byzantine Empire. During the Italian Renaissance before 1500 AD almost every painter used egg tempera, including Michelangelo.
The egg tempera technique uses egg yolk to bind the pigments for painting. As can be all too clear when it comes time to do the dishes, egg yolk dries quickly and if left for some time, is very hard to remove. This property is used to the painter’s advantage by mixing colors with it to make paint.
Egg yolk cracks when left to dry in a thick droplet. To avoid cracks in a painting it’s necessary to apply it in thin layers. In order to achieve this, only a small amount of egg tempera paint can be applied to the paintbrush. As the egg yolk dries very quickly in these quantities it is therefore essential to this technique that small amounts of paint are applied in short brush strokes. Almost immediately after applying the paint it’s dry enough to apply more straight on top of it without lifting what’s already there. It’s clear that the characteristic features of egg yolk, and how it dries, largely define the egg tempera technique. The paint is applied in short brush strokes, one thin layer over another until there are many layers. Different colors with varying levels of opacity can be applied in the different layers. To achieve a smooth appearance the brush strokes can be applied in all different directions so that no one direction is given preference. And any number of textures can be created, for example by making the strokes cross-hatched, or by having them all flow in the same direction.
Egg yolk dries as a crystalline substance, and on its own, allows light to pass through it and also to be reflected back up through it. It acts almost as a jewel, bouncing, diffusing and reflecting the light that enters it. With pigments present in the egg yolk, the light will act differently according to the absorbing properties of the pigments and their opacity.
Light entering the painting is scattered from each layer, and brush stroke, in an infinite variety of ways. Some of the light is scattered and reflected back before it reaches the bottom surface of the painting, some is bounced back from the base of the painting. If a bright white surface is used as the base of the painting this can reflect up into the painting, giving it an almost back-lit feeling. The result is a light-filled, almost luminescent, bright work of art.
As you might gather from this description, painting with egg tempera is a slow and very painstaking process. It requires meticulous attention not only to the detail of the subject matter but also to how the medium should be applied. An advantage of this technique is that it allows the artist to create paintings of incredible detail and accuracy.
There are many other binding agents used to make paints, including gum arabic (used in watercolor paints because it dissolves easily in water), oil, egg white, and casein (a milk protein). Around 1500, the use of oil paints largely replaced egg tempera. Oil paint can be applied in thicker and larger amounts allowing for much faster application, and therefore oil paintings often have a much deeper color saturation.
One great advantage egg tempera paintings have is that once they’re set, egg tempera paintings don’t change. Oil paints darken, yellow and become transparent with age. Egg tempera paintings don’t fade or change color; they’re permanent. Examples from the first few centuries AD still exist. Here’s one of my (yes certainly more recent than centuries ago!) paintings.
There are a number of ways to paint with egg tempera. This is what I do:
Sketching The Drawing
Pencil drawing on paper
I make a drawing in pencil on hot pressed Fabriano Artistico extra white 100% cotton watercolor paper. The cold pressed paper isn’t as smooth as the hot pressed; the smoother paper provides a better surface for the egg tempera paint.
Then, with diluted Winsor & Newton Calligraphy ink (using distilled water to dilute the ink), I redraw the image and erase the pencil lines. This allows being able to see the drawing later on, without it being visible on the final painting.
Inked artwork glued with archival wheat paste to tempered glass.
It’s necessary for an egg tempera painting to be on a rigid surface so that the paint doesn’t crack. Egg tempera paint uses egg as its base, and egg dries in crystalline form. It cracks if it’s painted on too thick, or if the surface its on bends. Using archival wheat paste, I glue the paper onto tempered glass, as you can see in the photo above. Tempered glass is totally non-toxic, doesn’t warp and looks very pretty.
I have put glass that has paper glued to it with archival wheat paste in the bath tub to soak to try to get the paper off. After leaving it for several hours I found that I still had to scrape vigorously in order to get the paper off. I decided to see what would happen if I soaked it, took the glass and paper out without scraping, and then let it dry. The paper dried just as if I’d never soaked it, and it was still completely stuck to the glass.
Archival wheat paste is a very impressive way to firmly, if not almost irreversibly, adhere paper to glass! It has the added advantage of being non-toxic, non-acidic and will not damage the artwork or paper in any way, and it doesn’t deteriorate over time.
At this point it’s time to make the base of the egg tempera paint: egg yolk mixed with a very small amount of water.
Preparation of egg tempera paint base
1. Crack the egg (preferably use ‘bio’ or ‘organic’ eggs) and remove the white, keeping only the egg yolk.
Separating the yolk from the white
2. Place the yolk on a tissue, I use a couple of sheets of toilet paper.
Separated egg yolk
3. Pierce the thin (but sometimes rather resilient) transparent sac around the yolk.
4. Squeeze the yolk gently and pour the orange-yellow liquid into a small jar.
Pouring egg yolk into a jar
Steps 3 and 4 ensure that only the yolk itself is included in the paint mixture, providing a very smooth base for the paint.
5. Add approximately half a teaspoon of water (preferably distilled water), it varies according to the size of the egg.
Add water to the yolk
6. Stir.
What you’re after is a mixture of egg yolk and water that looks a light creamy color. And that has the thickness and viscosity so that when you lift the teaspoon out from the mixture you get one or two drops leaving the spoon.
Egg tempera base of egg yolk and a small amount of distilled water
It’s always better to add small amounts of water and to keep adding until you reach the correct consistency. It becomes very easy with practice and this whole process only takes a few minutes once you’re used to it.
This is all there is to producing the base for painting with egg tempera.
Now the paper, with the ink sketch on it, is ready to be prepped for painting with egg tempera. This is done by painting three layers of the egg tempera base evenly over the entire surface of the paper. This must be done with thin layers, applying a little with the brush and spreading it evenly, just like when painting with egg tempera, so that it doesn’t crack when it dries. Essentially this is painting with egg tempera, just without any coloring pigment in it.
Artwork surface prepped for painting with egg tempera
You can click on this image to see it larger. This paper has been prepped with three layers of egg tempera. I also had started painting on it, but this is the only photo I had of prepped artwork. You can see the distinct yellow coloring of the egg tempera base on the page – this vanishes after some days in normal light.
At first an egg tempera painting can appear a little dull because of this egg yolk coloration, but once it fades, the image left is nothing less than stunningly bright and colorful. This is one of the huge bonuses of painting with egg tempera, and in addition, if light-fast color pigments are used in the egg tempera base, then these colors don’t fade or become yellow over time like oil paints do.
Traditionally artists have ground their own solid pigments, making them into a smooth powder, which they then mix into the egg tempera paint base, the mixture of egg yolk with a small amount of water. The egg provides the oily base, while the pigment colors the artwork.
Grinding pigments can be a highly toxic process and requires safety precautions to prevent inhalation of the powder and from absorbing it through the skin. It can also be a fairly time-consuming activity and requires some organization and storage space; often the pigments need to be stored in a liquid in jars.
I keep them in plastic bags to prevent them from drying out.
The egg yolk temporarily contributes a yellow color to the paint and this can make it a little difficult to estimate what the color will turn out to look like on the painting once the egg yolk yellowness has vanished after some days. So I made a color chart just using the watercolor paint with water, and I use this for reference when choosing which color to use for painting.
My Reference Color Chart
Using this watercolor paint reference chart removes most of the guesswork. I find this works a charm for estimating the final color outcome. Although, you do need to expect additional depth and brightness of color on the painting because it’s combined with the egg tempera paint base and not just water.
I usually prep one egg yolk for the day, very occasionally two. First I put a dab of Winsor & Newton watercolor into the bottom of one of the pallet wells. Then I use a small spoon to fill much of the rest of the palette well with the egg tempera base from the jar. I use an old paintbrush to mix the watercolor pigment with the egg tempera.
Painting Palette, glass of distilled water, egg tempera paint base and paintbrushes.
At the side I have a very small (shot) glass with distilled water in it. I use distilled water for the entire painting process.
Distilled water
If the room humidity is low then, at intervals through the day, it’s often necessary to add a little more water to the egg yolk and pigment mixtures in the pallete wells.
I paint with watercolor Winsor & Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable brushes. Are you getting the impression I rather like Winsor & Newton? I got a lovely watercolor box set on sale a few years ago and that set me onto them.
As the day progresses, more and more colors are added to the palette and colors are mixed with others.
Painting with egg tempera this way is efficient and also very economical. Excuse me for the blurry photo.
Usually I start with the darker colors that will appear in the painting and layer colors, sometimes interweaving dark and light colors to give the appearance of texture.
The thin crystalline layers of egg with pigment in them create a beautiful transparent effect, so that colors that are in layers below can be seen through the upper layers of paint, so long as the pigments used are not too opaque to see through or there are not too many opaque layers above.
Light travels down through the layers, bouncing off them and coming back up to the eye from all the different layers. This creates a myriad of stunningly bright, vivid facets to the image and is very appealing.
Here’s a short slideshow of the stages involved in painting “Annecy Restaurant”.
Using Layers of Egg Tempera Paint To Create Textures and Colors
Typically I paint all the parts of the painting that need the same color at the same time so that I can be efficient with the paint. I build up the paint, layer by layer, mixing layers of different colors if I want to have a textured effect.
Below you can see this in detail. The following five photos show how the wall becomes progressively more textured by adding layer on layer.
#1 in sequence showing painting of wall in "Annecy Restaurant" Egg Tempera painting
#2 in sequence showing painting of wall in "Annecy Restaurant" Egg Tempera painting
#3 in sequence showing painting of wall in "Annecy Restaurant" Egg Tempera painting
#4 in sequence showing painting of wall in "Annecy Restaurant" Egg Tempera painting
This last photo is how the wall looked for the finished painting. The variations in the surface are not cracks and they provide a very realistic texture for a wall. As you can see, the darker colors that were placed in the layers below are visible through the upper layers.
There are even contours visible on this painting, which adds nicely to its effect. If you click on the images, they’ll appear larger. There you can see that it’s possible to vary the paint height, for example the yellow lights, by painting more layers over particular areas. You can add as many layers of paint as you like and, as long as each layer is thinly applied, it won’t crack.
Painting sky and water with egg tempera is shown in this article through the painting progress of two egg tempera paintings by Nat Wildish: “Purple Flowers” and “Geneva Lighthouse“.
The great thing about egg tempera paintings on paper adhered to glass is that they can be framed in many ways, allowing each person to select what appeals to them. This subject is covered in detail in this DweezelJazz Art post.
Egg tempera paint sets to be very durable, and within a year of completion, paintings can be rubbed, wiped with a wet cloth, and pressed hard without damage to the surface. Further details are given in this post.
It’s great fun to paint with egg tempera!
I hope that you have found this information on egg tempera painting helpful. You’re welcome to look around the DweezelJazz Art Gallery to see more egg tempera paintings by Nat Wildish. And if you have any questions I’d be glad to hear from you, just drop me an email! Cheers,
