There are a number of ways to paint with egg tempera.  This article will show you what I do.  For an introduction to what egg tempera painting is and a brief history, see also previous post: An Introduction To Egg Tempera Painting.

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.

Providing A Solid Support For The Painting

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.

Preparation of the Base for the Egg Tempera Paint

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.

Prepping the Artwork Surface

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.

I’ve prepared a number of slide shows to demonstrate how I paint with egg tempera.  To see these, stay tuned for the next post on DweezelJazz Art blog: “How To Paint With Egg Tempera, Part II“.