All about Tempera Painting
Tempera is a water soluble and fast drying painting medium, used long before the modern oil paints.
This Painting is also known as egg tempera. can be traced back to the 1st century BC, when it was used to decorate
Egyptian sarcophagi. This paint was used to create high-quality art in
Bagh Caves,
Madhya Pradesh, India, from the late fourth to the tenth centuries. It is also used by artists such as
Sandro Botticelli,
Duccio, and
Carlo Crivelli in the majority of their artworks.
Tempera paintings are very long-lasting painting medium, and Egg yolk is the primary binder for the painting. But now a days, synthetic binders also used, which are same viscous as the egg yolk. Traditionally, egg yolk was added in proper ratio to the color pigments (powder) to make the paint. Sometimes milk and a variety of plant gums also used to make the paint more sticky.
Using viscous fluids like egg yolk makes the art more creamy like, which allows artists to create smooth strokes on canvas and helps to make a uniform painting. This paint dries rapidly. It can be applied in thin, semi-opaque or transparent layers.
Tempera adheres best to absorbent surfaces that have a lower oil content than the tempera binder used. The best thing about the paints is that the color of the paint does not change over time. Rather, oil paints darken, turn yellow, and become transparent with age.
Tempera painting produces smooth matte finish with higher color saturation. It can be used for more precise artworks as it enables to use cross hatching technique by various sizes of brushes. Egg tempera is water-resistant, but not waterproof. So the paintings made by the paint cannot be stored directly. Also the the painting is not a flexible painting. For this very rigid board is used, and the the paint should be applied in a very thin layer. To make the paint more durable over time, now-a-days, an extra layer of transparent fluids like cellulose lecquor is coated on it.
Tempera paint come in two varieties, some of which are toxic and some of which are not. Although the majority of tempera paint are non-toxic because they are typically water soluble, it should be kept in mind whether sort of paint is suitable for the artwork and should be purchased. Contrarily, the main component of tempera paint is Egg Yoke, making it clear that it is not vegan.