First Attempt at Egg Tempera

First, let me say, Happy New Year !! 2010!! It's hard to believe we're already in the first week of a new year. Where does the time go?

Now on to new work! After I finished the stone with the illuminated G, I needed something that I could paint in miniature using egg tempera. I wanted to keep it simple so I decided to do another illuminated letter. I didn't have as much of a problem as I thought I would with cleaning the egg yolk for the medium, (thank you Mona for your demo)! I found that using my hands to clean off the yolk worked better for me than the paper towel though. Until I know better what I'm doing, I am using watercolor instead of powdered pigments, except for titanium white. My surface was a 100% rag illustration board. My friend Janie Olsen ordered some of the True Gesso panels and is bringing me one on Friday. The True Gesso panels are not made with acrylic gesso, but made with the rabbit skin glue formula and are perfect for egg tempera painting.

Below is what I did and the problems I ran into. I think the hardest part was knowing when I had enough medium mixed with the paint. Also, I noticed the paint that was already applied was fragile and could scratch easily. I used thin paint to seal the surface and then on top of that I would use cross hatching and thin glazes. Sometimes the paint would lift off if it wasn't completely dry so I would work on another area.

You can see the cross hatching on the gold/orange area.

Here is where I've covered all the surface with thin layers.

I have continued to build up color and light. Here is where I started noticing problems. There is a flaky place just above the "a" and "y". Then the same thing started happening on the lower left corner. I was going to repair it on the bottom left corner by building it back up, but thought I'd leave it for awhile and see if anyone has any solutions. I also wonder about just using some of the medium alone on top of the flaky place above the "a" and "y" to see if it would stabilize it.

I continued to work on it because I was hoping to save it. I loved the glow and the colors. You can see the flaking places really well here as I used my brush to lift them off hoping I could repair them. I started to repaint, but gave up because I wasn't sure if I would run into this elsewhere as well. At this point I had already spent too much time without any assistance. I would like to know if I am on the right track, if this flaking is because I've not used enough egg medium, or if it's because I added too much paint or too many layers without it being dry? From the research I did, it sounds like the answer could be YES to all of them. But I don't know which and I'd like to avoid it again!! I'm having Janie look at it when she comes over. She's done some egg tempera and took one of Koo Schadler's one day workshops. I'm hoping she can at least give me her opinion. Any other suggestions would be welcome. I know Mona Diane Conner does beautiful work in egg tempera and sometimes visits here, so maybe she can give me some insight. I will try again. However for now, I need to move along and get some work finished for all my miniature deadlines coming up!

This is the new attempt so far of the same image using acrylics. I'll post the finished work when it's done. I enjoyed using the egg tempera so far and I'll be going back to it when I get a slot of time to try again. I think it's probably like anything else that you do. You have to do it a lot till you work out the problems and get better at it. So for now, I'll put the egg tempera on pause. Thanks for reading this post.

Illuminated Letter For Gina

This is a little something I did for my daughter, Gina. She should get it today. It's something I worked on while I was sick. I love illuminated letters and last year I did a miniature for the February "Romance Show" at the Arts of Snohomish Gallery. I had such fun doing that and want to do something similar again for their show this year. (I'll say more about that in my next post.) Meanwhile, I remembered I wanted to paint something on a stone. I love rocks and stones and have them all around our home. Once when I had some leftover gel medium I used it on some of the rocks that were sitting nearby. After several coats, the surface was so nice, I knew someday I wanted to paint something on one. Gina also loves rocks and found natural treasures. When she was little, she gave me two stones that she painted for me. I love them and have them in my studio, they make me smile every time I see them. I thought I would return the favor and had one with just the right shape that was perfect for her. I thought the colors and gold paint did well on the surface. It's painted in acrylic and finished with varnish. I forgot to measure the size, but you can get an idea by the first photo. It was done with love. It's not everybody who can say their Mom gave them a rock!