The tempera paint sold in stores today is not the same as the tempera paint of the Middle Ages--or even the tempera paint used by modern artists working in this medium. It's easy to be fooled by the name; I certainly was when I first started. The stuff called tempera paint sold in the United States is also called ( and more accurately, too), poster paints.¹ This paint is a mixture of synthetic pigments, chalky fillers, and a weak binder. It has some very unfortunate properties; it's difficult to achieve any sort of lasting, attractive result. Perhaps, as a beginner, you decided to go with poster paints as an inexpensive paint to begin practicing with, and that's okay. It's valuable to get the feel of your brushes, to discover your work pattern, and to develop good habits (such as proper care of your brushes) without blowing lots of moola on tube after tube of cadmium colors that would be wasted on learning the beginnning steps. On the day you decide to do a piece of illumination for real, or even to begin your study in ernest, however, throw those poster paints away and don't ever lok back.
Pigments give the color to your paints, and, well, pigments is pretty much pigments°. The major difference between most paints comes from the type and proportion of the binder--the agent that carries the pigment and makes it stick to the surface you are working on. Gouache and watercolors use gum arabic as their binders; real tempera uses egg. If you choose to work with commercially prepared prepared gouache throughout your career as an illuminator, you will be using a paint made from perfectly period (i.e., pre-1600) ingredients.² If, however, you would like to experiment with paint beyond the tube, read on.
While it is very easy to make gouache (essentially, pigment+whitening+gum arabic) and watercolor (pigment+gum arabic), egg tempera is becoming more and more my choice when I am making my own paints. I find that I enjoy the extreme ease of making the paint to be quite attractive, and I enjoy the luminosity of the paint in comparison to gouache. Too, egg yolk tempera is waterproof upon drying--an extremely valuable asset.
There are several different ways that a binder may be made from an egg. One may use just the white of the egg (hereafter refered to as glair), just the yolk of the egg (hereafter called tempera), or the entire egg, mixed.
Glair is probably the most complicated to prepare. The egg must be seperated, and the white beaten until stiff, then allowed to rest overnight. The liquid remaining after the foam disappates is then mixed with the pigment; the resulting paint is stored. It is, however, a stronger binder if allowed to age a bit before making your paints. The smell is unpleasent, true, but the results are worth it. This is not a waterproof paint; you wil be able to use it from the dried state and rework it once you apply it to your piece.
Some artists prefer glair as a binder precisely for this reason. Others point out that glair (and whole egg) is a very brittle binder, and thus, easy to break off a page. I have not a problem with the supposed brittle nature of glair; however, I have not used it frequently, as I find that I do not like the way that the pigment is suspended in this binder. Your experience may be different, though, and I encourage you to try this method.
Egg yolk as a binder, on the other hand, I quite enjoy. The steps for it's use are very simple and quite immediate. Seperate the yolk from the white, grasp the yolk sac and hold the yolk over a container. Pierce the yolk sac, allowing the contents to flow into the container. Mix an equal amount of water (distilled is best) into the yolk. Set aside for a moment while you mix some pigment with some water to make a smooth paste. Now add the yolk-water mixture to create a roughly equal proportion--half pigment paste and half yolk-water. Mix only small amounts at a time, for once this dries, it can not be reused. That's it. It takes longer to type this than to actually do this.
You'll want to test this mixture, of course, before applying any of these paints to your work. Dip your brush into your paint, paint a line across a piece of paper, and let it dry. If the line is too shiney, you've got too much binder in your paint. If the paint can be partially or wholly brushed or blown off, you need more binder. When in doubt, it is better to have a little too much binder.
In my experience, even when properly mixed, tempera always has some sheen to it; I've yet to mix it in such a way that there is no shine because of the balance of ingrediants rather than because I have mixed in too much pigment. While some of the manuals listed in the reference section of this article do note that tempera may be mixed in ways that will lessen or increase the sheen, none of these authors have suggested that the shine of tempera may be completely eliminated. Thus, if your tempera has a slight shine to it when dry, don't worry. It is to be expected.
Book illumination throughout the Middle Ages used gouache, tempera, and glair to decorate the pages of text. Some of the period artists suggest different different binders to bring out the best of a particular pigment. For instance, gum arabic seemed to bring out the best in a blue pigment, while glair was often used with various reds. This wasn't a hard and fast practice, however; Theophilis certainly advocated these rules, while the unknown author of the Göttingen Model Book used gum to bind all his pigments. Tempera was not often used completely alone in book illumination³; instead, straight tempera painting was usually reserved for panel painting. In illumination, tempera was often combined with a gum paint or glair, for the jewel-like beauty of tempera simply does not stand up well to the wear and tear of book usage. On the other hand, panel paintings done in tempera have withstood the ravages of time far better than many done in oils. Thus, if properly treated, tempera is one of the most beautiful and durable of all paints.
Most modern illumination is of the single page sort--the artist calligraphes perhaps a poem or a favorite paragraph and then decorates the page in the manner s/he believes most appropriate. Thus, tempera could be used alone in this circumstance with little worry regarding the treatment the piece will receive--once it is framed properly, it sould be safe. Nonetheless, I would suggest that a piece done on paper be mounted on foam core (or some other stiff backing). This will help protect your art work.
Should you find that you can't quite get the hang of tempera, or would like to keep the good qualities of your gum-based paints while gaining the qualities of tempera, you can, in a way, mix the two. Prepare a yolk water solution as above, then add it to your gouache or watercolor. This rather nicely combines the best of both worlds, giving the paint the beauty and sheen of the egg binder, while preserving the flexability of the gum binder. The waterproof quality of straight tempera is lost, but the water resistance of gouache is improved. However, you shall have to experiment with your proportions to find the result that you like. A gentleman scribe of my acquaintance advocates only a few drops of the mixture; another fellow scribe likes 1/3 yolk-water to 2/3 gouache; I myself prefer to substitute the yolk-water mix for water in all aplications of the gouache.ª What will work best for you? What will give you the result that you will like? It is up to you.
This requirement for experimentation is both a burden and a plasure. I can say that the learning is indeed woth it. Learning to make the paints is just the begining, of course. It is my hope that this article will spark your curiousity sufficiently to inspire you to do further research on the subject, that you may learn all about varnishes, grounds, sizes... and all the other things that are beyond the scope of this short article. May I sugggest the following books?
Anonymus. The Göttingen Model Book.
Cennini, C. Il Libro dell'Arte.
Miller, K. Egg Tempera Painting.
Theophilis. On Divers Arts.
Thompson, D. The Materials and Techniques of
Medieval Painting.
A letter with some tips for using egg tempera and some quotes from period references provided as evidence of the use of egg yolk as a binder in books may be found here.
°MANY, MANY PIGMENTS ARE POISONOUS. Treat these materials with ABSOLUTE RESPECT. NEVER eat, drink, smoke, point your brush with your mouth, or indulge in any activity that could cause you to ingest these items while working with them.
¹This is true in the U.S. In various European countries, Poster Paints or Poster Colours may refer to gouache. When choosing paints, the words "Designers Colours" generally appear on the better brands of gouache.
²However, be aware that some lines of gouache are actually acrylic-based, and usually called, appropriate enough, acrylagouaches. These do have some positive benefits, and should not be ignored as potential tools, but they have some very different properties.
³There are, of course, examples still in existance to prove such a general statement wrong. One way to determine the amount of tempera used in a book illumination is to look at the method of shading. While shading in the art of pre-1600 book illumination could take up several articles (which I expect I will get to writing eventually), late period book illumination shading was frequently determined by the materials used--a paint that is still workable after drying can use blending techniques, while a paint that is not workable once dried must use hatching for shading. This, too, is a generalization, and applicable only to later manuscripts--an artist might use hatching for everything if this is the only technique s/he knows.
ªFrequently unexplained in commercial manuals on illumination is the need to get your paint to a working consistancy. Gouache straight from the tube is too thick, too dry to put directly to page. When preparing gouache, squeeze the needed amount from the tube into a small dish, container, palette well, whatever (I frequently use ice cube trays, bottle caps, and scallop shells), and add a few drops of water. Let the water soften up the gouache for a few minutes. Mix the water and the gouache until you have a mixture similar in consistancy to warm honey or a thick nectar (add more water as needed). This should flow off your brush, without being so thinned that the opague quality of the gouache is lost.
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