Holly White-Gehrt is the primary instructor of the Texas Hill Country Atelier Core Program. She has studied egg tempera with Koo Schadler, Fred Wesssel, and Nathan Di Peitro. In the upcoming workshop, September 3-6, she will teach students to temper paint with egg yolk and paint a master copy.
BECAUSE...
The results are beautiful.
And the process is meditative.
What is Egg Tempera?
Tempera, meaning pigment mixed with a water-based binder (primarily egg yolk), is the earliest type of painting known. One needs only three ingredients: water, egg yolk, and pigment.
Egg yolk contains oil and proteins that cure and bind pigment to a prepared surface. Compared to other commonly used binders, such as linseed oil, acrylic medium, and gum arabic, egg yolk is easily obtained. Your local grocery store or favorite farmer can provide the binder you need to make luminous paintings that will last for centuries!
Pigments, on the other hand, need to be prepared. I buy my dry pigments already refined and ground. These pigments are sourced from the same stockpiles from which all artist’s paints are made. Dry pigments have a nearly infinite shelf life. But once the pigment is mixed, or tempered, the binder begins to cure unless tubed. Egg tempera has to be prepared and used within a few days because it would putrefy in a tube. Another reason why I love egg tempera is the joy of making the paint.
Egg Tempera vs Oil
In contrast to oil painting, which allows expressive brush work, egg tempera is more like drawing - the paint is laid down very gently with a soft brush, in short strokes, akin to hatching. Fred Wessel called them “butterfly kisses.” Layer after layer of light strokes, interspersed with washes, are where the magic starts to happen. With an absorbent, white, true gesso ground (not acrylic or oil ground, as commercially available), light passes through very thin and numerous layers of pigment, then bounces back, reflected and refracted on its way to your eye. The effect is like a mosaic of gemstones. Egg Tempera is known as the “blond” medium because of the light ground and transparency of the paint.
Planning a Painting
Because egg tempera is built in layers, the painting has to be planned ahead of time. Renaissance masters used a “cartoon” or drawing underneath their paintings, a few of which survived and can be viewed in museums, such as the Hans Holbein cartoon of Henry VIII in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
From a contemporary mindset, planning ahead may seem like “paint by numbers.” Funny how that description is meant as a dig, implying child’s play rather than serious art. This mentality comes from a Modernist influence in which the serious artist approaches a blank canvas and begins painting, equipped with nothing more than rigor and courage.
In my BFA studies, it was the Modernists with an impulse toward the transcendent, essential, or purely experiential that resonated most with me. (Think Rothko, Kandinsky, or Agnes Martin.) Modernists eschewed previous knowledge in favor of more a direct experience.
Now, having received Atelier Training, I find it just the opposite – planning ahead by making preliminary studies and drawings sets the stage for a calm or meditative painting process. Rather than trying to turn off my brain, I draw upon all of my acquired knowledge and experience to develop the drawing, design, and value structure first.
The planning ahead allows a more “transcendent” opportunity in the meditative phase of applying paint. Although this also applies to non-direct oil painting, it is especially true in egg tempera painting with its ever so delicate and multilayered application. Koo Schadler, living Master of egg tempera painting, explains:
“Cennino Cennini (1370-1440) said that the purpose of art was to paint other worlds, not this world. Tempera paint is water-based and thin. It has an incorporeal, ethereal quality. It’s applied in a gradual, meditative way. It’s difficult to render robustly three-dimensional form because darks aren’t as saturated and deep as in oil, highlights can’t be painted impasto, and smooth transitions are difficult to achieve.”
It's no wonder that egg tempera is still the favorite for “writing” (painting) Holy Icons.
For hands-on experience with egg tempera, sign up for Holly's workshop Sept 3-6.
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