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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Showing posts with label paint. Show all posts
Showing posts with label paint. Show all posts
Friday, May 16, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Bamiyan Cave Oil Paintings
I have already written about oil paints. You know that artists used to have to grind minerals into powder and then mix the powder with oil to make their paint. It was long believed by art historians and scholars that oil paints were not used until the 1600s. They also believed that oil paints were invented in Europe. Recently an act of terrorism allowed us to find new information about the history of oil paint.
In 2001 members of the Taliban blew up two, huge sculptures of Buddha. Behind the sculptures were paintings from the 5th to 9th centuries. The paintings had always been protected from the sun and the environment by the Buddha scultures but the attack put the paintings at risk. While trying to protect the paintings, scientists were able to study them.
Using a special type of light, scientists studied each layer of the paintings. They discovered that oil was used in paintings from the 7th century. Oil painting began in the Middle East 800 years earlier than art historians had thought!
From destruction came new knowledge. Sometimes there is a thin silver-lining.
Return to main page.
In 2001 members of the Taliban blew up two, huge sculptures of Buddha. Behind the sculptures were paintings from the 5th to 9th centuries. The paintings had always been protected from the sun and the environment by the Buddha scultures but the attack put the paintings at risk. While trying to protect the paintings, scientists were able to study them.
Using a special type of light, scientists studied each layer of the paintings. They discovered that oil was used in paintings from the 7th century. Oil painting began in the Middle East 800 years earlier than art historians had thought!
From destruction came new knowledge. Sometimes there is a thin silver-lining.
Return to main page.
Monday, November 12, 2007
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!!)
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.
Return to main page.
My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count.
(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!!)
Thursday, September 6, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Artist Profile: Johannes Vermeer
Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch painter, born in Delft in 1632. He began his career in the arts when his father died and Vermeer inherited the family art dealing business. He continued to work as an art dealer even after he had become a respected painter because he needed the money.
Vermeer married a Catholic woman named Catharina Bolnes, even though he was a Protestant, and went to live with her and her mother in the “Papist corner.” Catholics in Delft lived in a separate neighborhood than the Protestants and the members of the two religions did not usually spend much time together.
Vermeer and his wife had fourteen children but not nearly enough money to support them all. Catharina’s mother gave them some money and let the family live with her but Vermeer still had to borrow money to feed his children.
In 1653, Vermeer joined the painters’ trade association, the Guild of Saint Luke. This allowed him to be taken seriously as an artist.
Later, Pieter van Ruijven, one of the richest men in town, became Vermeer’s patron. As patrons do, Ruijven bought many of Vermeer’s paintings and made sure he had canvas, paints, and brushes so he could work. Having a patron meant that Vermeer could use the color blue in his paintings, a very expensive color in the 1600s because it was made out of the semi-precious stone, lapis lazuli. And use blue he did. Look at the headband on this famous painting, Girl with the Pearl Earring.
Today, we have given Vermeer credit for 66 paintings, though experts are only sure that 35 of them were actually painted by Vermeer. Another Dutch painter, Han van Mergeren, wanted to prove that he was a good artist so he painted in the style of Vermeer, making an unknown number of fakes.
Nearly all of Vermeer’s paintings show indoor scenes. One exception is View of Delft, shown below. Most have a single window on the left side of the painting which provides the light. (For example, The Milkmaid, picture to the left.) Vermeer created a smooth but thick painting by applying a thin layer of paint, letting it dry, then adding another thin layer of paint, and continuing until he was happy with the artwork. His subjects ranged from very poor workers to rich nobles.
Vermeer married a Catholic woman named Catharina Bolnes, even though he was a Protestant, and went to live with her and her mother in the “Papist corner.” Catholics in Delft lived in a separate neighborhood than the Protestants and the members of the two religions did not usually spend much time together.
Vermeer and his wife had fourteen children but not nearly enough money to support them all. Catharina’s mother gave them some money and let the family live with her but Vermeer still had to borrow money to feed his children.
In 1653, Vermeer joined the painters’ trade association, the Guild of Saint Luke. This allowed him to be taken seriously as an artist.
Later, Pieter van Ruijven, one of the richest men in town, became Vermeer’s patron. As patrons do, Ruijven bought many of Vermeer’s paintings and made sure he had canvas, paints, and brushes so he could work. Having a patron meant that Vermeer could use the color blue in his paintings, a very expensive color in the 1600s because it was made out of the semi-precious stone, lapis lazuli. And use blue he did. Look at the headband on this famous painting, Girl with the Pearl Earring.
Today, we have given Vermeer credit for 66 paintings, though experts are only sure that 35 of them were actually painted by Vermeer. Another Dutch painter, Han van Mergeren, wanted to prove that he was a good artist so he painted in the style of Vermeer, making an unknown number of fakes.
Nearly all of Vermeer’s paintings show indoor scenes. One exception is View of Delft, shown below. Most have a single window on the left side of the painting which provides the light. (For example, The Milkmaid, picture to the left.) Vermeer created a smooth but thick painting by applying a thin layer of paint, letting it dry, then adding another thin layer of paint, and continuing until he was happy with the artwork. His subjects ranged from very poor workers to rich nobles.
EDITED TO ADD: Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett, book review
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