Tempera Paint

Tempera is a type of paint made using egg yolk. It is still used today by some artists but it was very popular in ancient Egypt as well as during the Italian Renaissance. To make the paint, an artist ground minerals into powder. He separated the yolk (the yellow part of the egg) from the white. Then the artist mixed the yolk with the colored powder until he like the color and thickness of his paint.

Egg yolk dries quickly and forms a hard coat. Once dry, yolk is difficult to remove. (Try scrubbing dried egg out of a bowl…) Because of this, paintings made with tempera last a long time. The Fayum Portraits of ancient Egypt have lasted more than 2000 years!

You can make your own tempera! Be sure to have an adult help you with this one. Do not make the tempera until you are ready to paint with it.

Supplies Needed:

Chalk
Pencil sharpener
Egg
Water
Empty egg carton
Bowl
Fork

Sharpen a piece of chalk with your pencil sharpener. Empty the shavings into one of the egg carton cups. Repeat for each color you wish to create.

Separate the egg yolk from the egg white. You will only need the yolk. Mix the egg yolk with about three teaspoons of water.

Stir a small amount of the yolk mixture into each cup. Your paint should be a little runny. Be sure to stir until the paint is smooth.

You are now ready to create your masterpiece! Be aware that tempera paint dries fast. If the paint sits in the cups for too long, you’ll have to add a little more water to prevent it from thickening.

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Art Supplies: Watercolors

Watercolors paints are made by mixing pigment with water. Because they aren’t made with oil, watercolors are easier to clean up but the colors aren’t as bright. Also, they aren’t shiny the way oil paints are.

Watercolors sometimes come in tubes and sometimes in tubs. You’ve probably used watercolors before. To paint with watercolors, just dip your brush in water and then rub it in the paint to pick up some of the color. But using more or less water you can create lighter or darker colors.

Watercolors are transparent paints. This means that when you paint with them you can still see some of the paper through the color. If you paint on top of another, dry color the colors will blend because you will be able to see through the top color to the bottom color.

Tomorrow I’ll post a watercolor project. For now, check out this illuminated manuscript project which also allows you to use watercolors. Or read about Winslow Homer who painted some amazing seascapes using watercolors.

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My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count.

16339 / 50000 words. 33% done!
(No, I didn’t double my word count...
I didn’t even catch up.
But I would like to point out that I am
one third finished with my novel!!)

Art Supplies: Oil Paints

Until the mid-1800s, artists had to buy the ingredients separately and mix their own paints. This involved grinding colored minerals into pigments and mixing them with oils. When oil paint became popular in the 1500s, some artists made improvements. They added other ingredients to shorten the long drying time and prevent the paint from darkening when it dried.

Today, oil paints come pre-mixed in tubes like acrylics and some watercolors. Colors that used to be very expensive to use because the mineral was rare and expensive, like blue, can now be man-made.

Oil paints are glossy and can be transparent (allowing light to pass through) or opaque (blocking light from passing through) depending on the color you choose. The transparent colors seem to glow while the opaque colors are richer. Oil paints colors are very bright, the brightest of any type of paint.

They take much longer to dry than water colors or acrylics. This is useful because it allows the artist to take paint off the canvas easily using turpentine and a rag. Because oil paints dry through a chemical reaction, they continue to dry (and to change) for years after the paint is dry to the touch. In fact, conservators of art (whose job it is to keep art looking the way the artist intended) consider an oil painting to be in the process of drying for up to 80 years! Click on Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring and you will see cracking across the girl’s face. Next time you visit a museum look for cracks in the paint; you’ll see them everywhere.

Oil paints are different from acrylics and watercolors in that they form a hard shell on the canvas. This shell can crack when the painting is moved and you’ll see fine lines forming through the painting. From the 1500s to the 1800s, it was popular to paint with oil on panels of wood. The wood would sometimes warp though, and this created even more cracking in the paint. To avoid cracking, the paint should get oilier with each layer. This was probably very easy for artists who made their own paints but would be quite difficult for someone today just starting out as a painter.

Oil paints are also harder to clean and will stain if you spill them.

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Art Supplies: Charcoal

Charcoal is the substance left over when wood is burned. It is used in the same way as pastels to create artwork in shades of black, white, and grey.

It can be bought in sticks, charcoal pencils, or loose powder.

Charcoal can also be used to make parsemage. A parsemage is a piece of artwork made by floating charcoal powder on water, sliding a piece of paper into the water underneath the charcoal, and then lifting the paper so the charcoal sticks to it.

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You can create a parsemage, too.

Materials Needed:

Charcoal
Wide Bowl
Water
Thick Art Paper
Eraser (optional)


Next time you go camping take a plastic container with you. Once the campfire has completely cooled (overnight), take a few small pieces of burned wood and bring them home in your plastic container. If your family cooks on a charcoal grill, ask for a charcoal briquette instead.

Fill a wide bowl with warm water. Crumble your charcoal into the water. The powder will float on the top. Try to grind the charcoal into fine powder because if it's too heavy it will sink to the bottom and won't attach to your paper. Slide a piece of thick art paper into the water just below the floating charcoal. Lift the paper out of the water, allowing the charcoal powder to stick to your paper. Lay the paper flat to dry.

You can now create a drawing on top of the parsemage or you can erase patterns in the charcoal on your paper.

Note: You can do this project using chalk instead of charcoal. Just use a pencil sharpener to grind chalk into powder and sprinkle the powder on the surface of the water. Try using different colors in the water to create some cool effects.

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Art Supplies: Pastels

There are several types of pastels, soft pastels, hard pastels, and pastel pencils. Soft pastels look like crayons, though they are not waxy. They are so soft that the artist can blend different pastel colors right on his paper using his fingers. Soft pastels produce very bright colors.

Hard pastels are not as bright or as soft as soft pastels. They do not blend or smudge as easily and are usually used for drawing outlines and details.

Pastel pencils are used for drawing fine details. They are like colored pencils with a softer lead. The colors are brighter than colored pencil colors but not as bright as soft pastels.

Edgar Degas, a French painter in the nineteenth century, used pastels a lot. They were perfect for creating the tutus of his many ballerinas like the ones shown here in Ballet Rehearsal.

You can buy soft pastels, hard pastels, and pastel pencils at most art supply store. If you can, try each type for yourself. Then draw a picture using all three types of pastels.

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