Egg Tempera II

Today's workshop session began with a discussion on transfer paper. Graphite can be quite messy. For a commercial solution, Saral works great. It comes in colors, really individual pigments with their own properties. It may be hard to see but in my painting I am using white Saral to stub in the egg in the middle. One can also make transfer paper by mixing dry pigment with denatured alcohol to a creamlike consistency and painting it on tracing paper.

Sorry about the image quality but I'm working from my Droid X. In my painting, I'm mixing chromium oxide green into three colors using burnt umber, cadmium orange, and yellow ochre. You can see those three mixes in action here, creating the radial gradation. I'm also glazing with alizarin crimson, prussian blue, burnt umber, and raw umber. There are even a few scumbling layers with titanium white. All my paint application has been with cosmetic sponges.

I'm polishing occasionally with cheesecloth. It adds a wonderful evenness and eggshell shine, a real glow with depth.

There was much discussion on proper medium (egg and water) and proper tempering (medium and dry pigment). After that came information on true gesso boards, which can nicely be described as a paint! Pigment (inert white substance, either gypsum or chalk), binder (animal water-based glue), and vehicle (water).

Later in the day came an awesome demonstration on faux finishes. First came stone-like finishes and then texturing, stenciling, pressed patterns, dragged 80 grit sandpaper, Saral imprints and transfers, you name it! The session ended with us imagining our own possibilities.

Monday morning I felt I'd already learned enough. Monday afternoon left me saying the same thing. Today, I am completely blown away! An incredible amount of wonderfully presented material. And in between all this, there were 11 of us painting away with Koo repeatably coming around to offer individual coaching, advice, and pats on the back.