My Egg Tempera Workshop

In mid-January I led a workshop on how to paint with Egg Tempera. My workshop was hosted by The Collaboratory, an artist collective with a public space in Long Island City, NY.

Egg tempera painting is a venerable medium. Egg tempera provides a translucent paint, as juxtaposed with the transparency of water color or the opaque quality of oil painting.

The egg tempera workshop consisted of many parts. I offered a slide presentation showing a history of egg tempera painting. The slide presentation consists of pre-renaissance Italian painting and modern American painting. I also showed slides that I took recently of an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art called The Siena Show.

Next I showed the materials and tools I use to paint with egg tempera. I use raw pigments that I get from Kramers Pigments in New York City. I came prepared with an egg mixture to use as binder for the pigment. The binder consists of egg yolk, water and damar varnish.

I also prepared masonite boards coated with gesso, and I brought paper and canvas to use. Tools include paint brushes, palette knives, styrofoam palettes and drip-bottles.

I discussed how to handle the powder pigments safely. A demonstration was made how to mix and modulate the egg mixture with pigment and water to make paint, and how to apply the paint with the brush.

Once those subjects were complete the participants were free to try painting with egg tempera themselves. We had more than two hours to paint during the three hour workshop.

I personally enjoyed most that each participant introduced themselves and we all had a chance to talk amongst ourselves. I was pleasantly surprised to feel an immediate sense of community. It felt really good to paint along with a group of friends.

My hosts at The Collaboratory were happy with the event. They have invited me to return again in a few months.

I am interested to give more workshops and looking for additional venues in the greater New York City area. If you are interested to host a workshop please send me a message.