Intro to Egg Tempera Painting Basics

• Hot press watercolor paper is an alternative to using a rigid panel, especially if you are just testing out the material.
• A rigid panel is ideal.
• You can use rabbitskin glue + a chalky substance like whiting powder.
• Egg tempera cannot be painted on acrylic gesso, it’s not absorbent enough and the egg tempera won’t adhere.
• Ampersand Claybord is a good option.
• A porcelain palette works well so that the egg tempera feels smooth and can glide across the surface.
• Egg tempera is best when it is very thin layers of transparent washes, sometimes 10-15 layers is needed.
• Andrew Wyeth’s Helga paintings are egg tempera.
• Byzantine art used a lot of egg tempera, and the Italian Renaissance with artists like Botticelli.

• Soft brushes work best.
• Egg tempera dries very fast, especially if you paint very thin, it can dry in 5 seconds.
• Compared to gouache, egg tempera is not chalky and opaque the way gouache is.
• Compared to watercolor, egg tempera feels more silky and smooth and creates much cleaner, crisper edges than watercolor.
• You can reactivate egg tempera, but not all the way like you can with watercolor, some of the first strokes will still be a bit visible.
• Egg tempera does cross-hatching exceptionally well.
• You can blend the egg tempera, but it’s impossible to get something really smooth and isn’t idea.
• Egg tempera is very smooth and silky, it glides across the surface beautifully.

Art Supplies

• Sennelier Egg Tempera Binding Medium
• Sennelier Egg Tempera Set
• Arches Watercolor Pad, Hot press
• Yupo paper, heavy
• Yasutomo Mineral Paper Pad