Hi folks, I just started an egg tempera painting yesterday. It is of a girl playing a lap harp. Egg tempera is done on a very smoothly primed hard board. It consists of powdered pigment mixed with egg yolk and is applied in thin layers, building up transparent layers. I use soft sable brushes and man made sponges. I cut the sponges into small pieces and dab on color, let dry and add color. Egg tempera dries fast, so you can layer again as soon as a layer is dry. If you try to layer over a wet area, you will pick up the pigment and leave a spot without paint! So it is a bit tricky, but so much fun and such an interesting challenge. This is a small painting, but I plan to do some larger ones. Hope to finish this one tomorrow and if so I will post the finished painting, so keep looking. Click on it for a closer view and maybe you can see where I have been using the sponge.
Successes and failures
4 years ago
You've done a great job on the girl's face, looking foward to seeing it when finished. Is this from a photo you've taken?
ReplyDeleteYes, this is from a photo I took when painting at the Heathcote Botanical Garden. She played for us during our lunch break.
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