EGG TEMPERA FROM START TO FINISH, by Fergus A Ryan 

Raven, that's very kind of you. We learn all the time from one another, and there are many styles in egg tempera, as in other media. I've just been teaching an egg tempera workshop and I learnt new things from my students.

Suku Mac Yes, I’ve even seen mussel shells used as receptacles for each colour.

Vinagre ayuda con la bacteria, verdad? 😊

I also have a lovely porcelain palette with wells which is great for keeping mixes wet longer.

@@100samanthamarievinegar helps preserve the egg yolk medium for a few days while it still in liquid form. I put clingfilm on my small glass and keep it in the refrigerator.

Белое сухое вино, вот что я добавляю.

Thank you As Yuki. Check out my website fergusaryan.com for other videos.

I made a small error on my glue ratio in the gesso-making section, which I corrected in an earlier comment The glue granules to water ratio is always 1:16, or one tablespoon (15ml) to one cup (240ml), both for the sizing and for the gesso. The error was that I said incorrectly (as you quoted here) 6 cups of water to 9 tbsp of glue granules. It should be 6 tbsp glue granules to 6 cups of water, again 1:16 by volume. Then to that mixture (when dissolved and warm) slowly add 9 cups of the whiting or chalk. That is 1:1.5 glue solution to chalk. That's your gesso mixture ready to go. I hope that's clear. And no, the overnight thing isn't necessary. If you've got the ratio right it'll always be fine. Fergus

@@fergusryan3395 Thank you so much Fergus! Your reply came just on time! I did the first coating today with just water and glue and I prepared the glue for the gesso with the 1:1.5 ratio (and left it in the fridge). Tomorrow I will correct it. I noticed today that the rabbit skin glue takes a while to dissolve and a lot of brush work. I used a slightly warmer water to facilitate the process but still. I was wondering.. it depends on what rabbit glue you buy or it always happen? Thank you so much again for your reply! Giulia

Giulia S. The glue granules should dissolve in the warm water in about 15 - 20 minutes or so while gently stirred. Be careful not to warm the water above 45°C-50°C or the binding power of the glue will deteriorate. Sometimes I leave the granules in cold water for a few hours beforehand or overnight, and they absorb the water better when heated. But this very watery warm mixture should be very easy to brush on. Be sure you use proper tablespoon and cup measures. I use those little kitchen measuring spoons that are labeled with 15ml and plastic cups that are measured as 1 cup or 240ml.

@@fergusryan3395 Fergus, I may have melted slightly above 57 C.. I remembered you saying less than 75 C, but you actually say 57! Auch! I added more water and the gesso but I was unsure of the result (that was before relizing my mistake). I primed only one board with one hand and let it dry. Should I trow all that away and start again? And, how do I know when the mixture is good? Now it is fluid and quite "gluey".. Sorry for the many questions, I'd love to hire you as teacher if you do that! 🙂 Thanks for the tip of leaving the rabbit flakes in water overnight. It makes sense.

Great! Let me know how you progress.

yefaircity Hi again, did you ever do any egg tempera paintings? Fergus

Ilana, I'm happy you liked this.

Hi Linda, are you wondering how to do egg tempera paintings of shine on wood furniture or objects? There are three of my paintings that come to mind with shiny wood that you might like to look at on my website www.FergusARyan.com. The first two are in the portraits section, Prologue and Reflection. The first is a painting of my wife but you can examine closely the shine in the wood chair. The second is a woman sitting on a wood windowsill and you can see how various parts of the wood are affected by light. The third is a small still life of a toy aeroplane on a wood mantleshelf. See how the light affects different parts. Those three are all painted in oils, but another in egg tempera with wood in various lighting is titled ‘Afterthought’, a girl on a chair in an old mill, again in the portraits section. For the wood on the left side I first put down large washes of an ochre colour and almost immediately scrubbed them with a cloth to make the underlying broken texture. Must be within 10 second to work. Then I painted the detail wood grain and stains over that with smaller brushes. So I think there’s no *paint* recipe as such; it’s really about observing very closely the shapes, edges (soft or sharp), values (light/dark comparisons), colour intensity or desaturation (chroma). So it’s really about very close observation. I sometimes use a small white card with a 1cm square hole in it to place over the patch you wish to examine and that helps see its colour and light/dark value. I hope I’ve understood your question correctly, Linda. Please let me know if this helps.

@@fergusryan3395 Thank you for your answer Sir. These are Beautiful paintings. But I was just interested in painting tables and chairs but shiny. I am seraching about natural paints like tempera, but glossy.

Oh haha! Well, sorry for putting through all that. No, I’m not really qualified on furniture finishes. For my framing is use a mixture of shellac, powdered pigments, and methylated spirits (denatured alcohol). These can be finished with a glossy varnish, or with waxes, but I suggest to look in RU-vid for paint finishes and varnishes.

Very kind sir, thank you. Wish you all good. Have a good day.

tutleymutley, your words were just fine, thank you!

Nicholas Fanzo The paint in tubes has a preservative added as normally-mixed pure egg tempera paint lasts only a short time. I haven’t used the pre-mixed product.

Cory Streat Thank you Cory. I hope you get to do some new work in egg tempera.

That’s right Andy. I explain the backstory in the very last section of the video.

Hi Dawn, the materials in the video include an animal glue that comes in small flakes or crystals called 'rabbit skin glue'. It can be obtained from good artist's suppliers. Mine is from Sennelier in Paris, but it can be obtained in the US from Bli ck, Natural Pigments, etc, or in the UK from Jackson's and others, or in Ireland from K&M Evans.

Thank you, Elaine.

Thanks for your kind comments, Carlos. Most egg tempera painters don’t varnish their works as it changes the distinctive satin finish of the tempera, one of its distinctive characteristics. But it can be done. I did it once with retouch varnish but I thought it looked awful and I had to remove it slowly and repaint parts of a portrait. I usually apply a very diluted wash of the egg medium (about 1:6 egg medium to water) as a final unifying layer. Temperas can also be gently buffed with a fine cheesecloth or muslin.

@@fergusryan3395 thanks for your answer, is intresting the thing you say about using the egg and the water as final varnish, i used to think on it but i never tried also because i thinked that it could give problems on the future as an oil hand of varnish on an oil painting could do, i look in internet for an answer to my doubt but i couldn't find anything.

Rich, that's so interesting that you visited this remote place. The Blaskets museum on the mainland is a remarkable place. I found the images of the islanders haunting. It seems a millennium away in another phsychic space. Haunting. I don't think the director liked my painting as they also want to present the island as a living place.

Psychic !

Just reading this again. You make me feel great!

@@fergusryan3395 I just re-read my comment. I am glad you are blessed once more! Now, because I am taking a pharmaceutical that is robbing my memory ( which I plan to give my doc holy hell for ), I barely remember this video. So I will watch it after this reply! Lols @ life~~~ My Amazon "Shop With Points" is accumulating nicely. Hence, I was thinking of buying some water colors? Perhaps rewatching your video will change my mind. And I can get something else on my wishlist? I rarely eat eggs anymore these days. I am in good health trying to move gradually to raw vegan. Yep, you guessed it - my decision was prompted by the $&#@* pharm meds my doc has been pumping me with!? And how I wish he was NOT my cousins husband too! More Lols~~~

adumelial rothstein Thank you again Lois. Best wishes for your strength and health.

Thank you Jackson for your kind comments. I actually recorded this near midnight as my wife was asleep and I was trying not to speak too loudly! There are two slight changes I could make to the video. For mixing the second bowl of glue for the gesso itself I said six cups of water and add nine tablespoons of glue. This should be 6 cups of water and six tablespoons of glue. To make it simpler again for preparations of various panel sizes it’s always 1 cup water and 1 tbsp glue flakes, or 1:16 by volume ( a cup is 240 ml, a tablespoon in 15 ml, a ratio of 16:1). Also the second painter I mentioned with Andrew Wyeth should have been Peter Hurd not Howard Pyle. Feel free to contact me directly through my Fb page if you have any questions. facebook.com/fergusryan.art

Lisa Raymer Hi Lisa. Thank you for your kind comments. In most of my landscapes I have used a very simple sky, usually a warmish grey of some kind. I paint it at first in a broad wash of the tempera which is roughly the tone I want. Then I begin to go over it slowly with more paint using make-up sponges (the triangular ones) with the sharp edges torn off so as not to make lines. It usually takes quite a few passes before the area is as uniform as I would like it. Even then I may do tiny areas of cross-hatching with a No2 watercolour brush to finish some areas.

Thank you Dennis. Feel free to send me images of your first venture.

Thank you for your kind comments. Perhaps sometime I may do an updated improved version. This was really just slides, but I’m astonished at how many people have found it helpful. Your own pencil drawings are astonishing.

The choice of palette depends on the kind of work you wish to do. Painters like Andrew Wyeth used a lot of earth colours (siennas, ochres, umbers). His model Helga told me that he said he could paint what he wanted with just raw sienna, black and white. But he did use blues, yellow and reds too, although his overall finished look is usually quite subdued. Koo Schaffer uses a more colourful palette in her temperas. I have literally dozens of pigments, although I tend to use mostly the earths. In my oil painting I use what is sometimes called ‘the Apelles palette’ of just red, yellow, black and white. The yellow and black make a dull green, and there is some blueness in the black when it is lightened with white. Red, black and white produce some lovely lilacs. However, egg tempera is not so much about mixing colours as interlacing tiny strokes of pure colour to produce complex optical effects. Have a look on my website at, for example, Light In Her Eyes, in the Portrait section to see how hatched, rather than mixed, colour is characteristic of tempera. Also have a look at a recent egg tempera landscape Monterey Pines, to see the optical effects of hatched colour. www.FergusARyan.com

@@fergusryan3395 Thank you for this commentary!

You’re right. It’s all down to me.

Chris Murphy, I was teaching an ET workshop recently and one of the participants brought two stunningly beautiful small icons with gilding. I have a DVD by Harley Brown entitled Breaking Eggs, Making Paint which is a step by step demonstration of copying an icon painting by Simone Martini.

Chris, that's interesting about the Springfield connection. Looking at my video again it would have been easier to say the proportion of glue flakes to water is 1:16 by volume for both sizing and making the glue, or 1 tablespoon (15ml) to 1 cup of water (240ml). I the video I have the proportions a little thicker (1.5 to 16) and it should be 1:16.

Thank you Marc. Have you done some egg tempera paintings?

Lis, there is a US manufacturer called True Gesso. www.truegesso.com/. You could also try egg tempera on hot press watercolour paper, which doesn't need the gesso preparation, although the piece would have to be glazed.

Joanne Carroll - That’s very kind of you, thank you.

Much appreciated Lisa. Glad you found it helpful.

@@fergusryan3395 very much so. xxx

Ettoredipugnar I haven’t used gelatin, as I’ve had rabbit skin glue for years. There are several technical resources you might find helpful. KooSchadler.com has a first rank manual available from her website. Also you might pick up an older copy of Robert Vickrey’s ‘New Techniques in Egg Tempera’ on Abebooks.com or .co.uk

Vincent Brown I’m delighted this was helpful. I am always surprised that this modest presentation on a relatively obscure subject received so many responses. Thank you for your kind comments, Vincent.

Thank you for that lovely response. I hope you enjoy the new medium. There’s one thing in the video that should be slightly different: the ratio of glue granules to water should always be 1:16 at both stages (ie 1 tbsp glue flakes to 1 cup of water, or 15 ml to 250 ml). Then when making the gesso the ratio is 1:1.5 or one cup of warm glue solution to which one and a half cups of the chalk powder / whiting is slowly added.

mould not mold, sorry for the typo

Cindy, I'm delighted you found this helpful. I'm always amazed that people find a modest production like this and benefit from it.

I hope you get on well with the icons. There's a DVD by Harley Brown issued by Brandywine museum in which he painstakingly reproduces an icon by Simone Martini using the methods of Cennino Cennini. Of course most ET painters don't follow Cennini's methods in exactly that way today, but for icon painters there is usually a spiritual reason for each part of the process.

Yes, I have seen some icon painting video before but I don't want to touch too much of the crumbling paint areas yet. will start with the broken edges, if that goes well, I will work on more important areas. Thank you once again! i feel more confident, thanks to you!

You can also try painting with egg tempera on watercolor paper.

Fabrizio, the purpose of sizing is to protect the material, not so much to make it rigid. The wood panel is sized so that there is no transfer of chemicals from the wood through the ground or that no moisture from outside enters the wood and causes problems with swelling.

Thank you Raymond.

That's very kind of you Jorge, thank you.

Mishi, you're welcome, thank you.

Gemika Maloney Thank you Gemika.

Raffaello Sacchetti 5very informative

Francesculus H Thank you for your comment. I may do another video that concentrates more on the actual painting process. I occasionally do some posts like that on my Facebook page.

Fergus Ryan excellent! Thanks for answering. It will be great this video. I greatly admire your work.

saldressage thank you for your kind comments. I’m glad this was helpful. I tried to include every practical element necessary to complete a tempera painting. Often ‘how to’ videos miss out the very thing I need to know on some detail. Here I might for example have said a little more about the sanding process, but I wanted to balance preparation with painting. I sometimes post short clips on my Facebook art page at facebook.com/fergusryan.art

DickyG41 I tried tempera grassa, although I didn’t find it to be of benefit. I know several fine painters who work that way though.

Thank you for the reply!

Maysoon AlDooriaines. Thank you. Glad you found it helpful.

Thank you Chris. I was observing my experience that *rotating* (circular) sanders were more likely to cause gouging than orbital (ie oscillating rather) sanders. Is that not correct? Using finer grit may avoid the rotating sander problem; is that what you suggest?

@@fergusryan3395 I misinterpreted your use of "orbital", sorry. I can make some recommendations, first is to learn about proper usage of an oscillating orbital, the auto motive industry makes extensive use of them for good reason, they work exceedingly well at giving you fast results with a superior fine finish. To get good results on a primer layer, you need the correct grit and type of grit for your sanding disc, next you need to learn proper way to use the orbital as you sand. Here is a good video to get you started with both (I hate this youtube channel, but he does get this right!): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qDYPGgjQmF4.html

‘Orbital’ is a confusing term as it sounds like the operation of a circular rotating sander, rather than what it is, an oscillating movement. Of course I do indeed use the orbital and I have had no issues with it at all.

Ryan Kelleher Thanks Ryan, I’m just in the process of getting ready for my egg tempera workshop next weekend. If you email me through my website I’ll send you my materials list if that would be of any interest. www.FergusARyan.com

Honestly, I am quite astonished by the response to this modest presentation. It seemed so basic and on such a niche subject and yet it has now almost 100,000 views. You might like to visit my website to see other newer works in egg tempera (and in oils) www.FergusARyan.com

TERRYBIGGENDEN Thank you Terry. I switch back and forth between painting in tempera and in oils. Check out my Facebook art page for newer work. facebook.com/fergusryan.art

Thank you for your kind comment, Aoxomoxo. The impact of first seeing Wyeth's Christina's World in 1970 before I knew anything about him led to my long search to understand what I was seeing, and to understand why this work has affected me so much. Wyeth and Vickrey have that quality of 'mood' and glimpse of hidden feelings and things not present. Of course this can be accomplished in other mediums, but I like tempera for the fact that the painter can keep working over the fast-drying paint, and build those scintillating areas of colour by the multiple hues breaking through the tiny strokes.

Judith, thank you for your kind comments. The layers don’t merge in the sense of dissolve, as they dry very quickly, in a minute or two. Also, after the initial washes I tend to work in small hatched strokes, and so there’s room to move around while other marks are drying, and I don’t have the problem of disturbing earlier marks. By glazing medium do you mean the paint medium itself, or applying wetter washes? The medium is one egg yolk with a little water (depending on how runny the yolk is) and a drop of vinegar to stop any mould. Making the paint involves the simple step off adding a few drops of water to the dry pigment to make a paste, then I add about the same volume of the medium. Earth pigments tend to need a little more pigment or they looks dusty when dry. As well as applying the paint with strokes, I often unify a passage with a very slightly wetter glaze over the top, and let that dry. As for a final treatment many painters leave the surface untreated. I sometimes add a thin layer of the medium, but I have also heard of that being advised against. Varnishing tends to take away the thing that makes the tempera so distinctive, its satin look.

Maria Duszak - I’m glad you found this helpful. It’s a beautiful medium.

Linseed oil can yellow. Fergus is doing tempera with egg/water. Try looking up stand oil as an alternative, it is supposed to yellow less.