egg tempera over oil paint?

[Rosemary]

There is an article in the October/November issue of International Artist by a fellow named Helmut Ditsch who paints large landscapes on canvas in oil and egg tempera. On page 44 under the caption of the painting Delta, he states that he puts egg tempera on top of the final layer of oil paint. He says that he acquired this technique during his study at the Academy of FIne Arts in Vienna, Austria.

Has anybody out there ever heard of doing this? It seems to me that it would violate the fat over lean rule for oil painting. I have tried sending this guy an email for clarification of his technique but no answer so far. All the other references to a mixed technique that I have found speak of using oil glazes over egg tempera underpainting.

He is shipping these paintings some distance so that he has to ship rolled and stretch when they are installed. He has a website www.helmut-ditsch.com which seems to be incomplete.

Thanks for any others thoughts.
Rosemary

[turlogh]

Egg tempera applied in small areas over wet oil paint is an old and tested procedure. I would never use ET in large areas over dried oil paint, especially on canvas, no matter what academy thinks it's a good idea. It's not.

[Rosemary]

I am always looking for ways to do very large paintings and I love the matt look of egg tempera, so it sounded interesting. Perhaps he is only adding sharpening touches of egg tempera.

How wet does the oil need to be? tacky?

Rosemary

[turlogh]

How wet does the oil need to be? tacky?Fully wet is best. The ET sinks into and binds with the oil paint without blurring. It's a pretty neat effect.

[Christian Vibert]

Has anybody out there ever heard of doing this?
Rosemary

Yes, I have.

This technique is named "technique mixte". You must always work in two times :
1) You work with pigments, oil and resin glazes.
2) When this first coat becomes sticky (about ten minutes), you can overpaint it with an egg/oil/resin emulsions.

With this technique, you are able to work again and again, always observing these two times. It's basically the way I paint.

Christian

[Rosemary]

I visited a fellow who has an atelier in Monflanquin and teaches a way of painting "mixte" but it was a variation of using emulsion for the grisaille and underpainting and resin for the final coats. I saw a show of his students' work and it was astounding. (I can't think of his name at the moment.)

This is the first time I have heard of alternating the layers wet in wet. I will have to try it. Do you have any images of your paintings on the web?

Rosemary

[Christian Vibert]

I visited a fellow who has an atelier in Monflanquin and teaches a way of painting "mixte" but it was a variation of using emulsion for the grisaille and underpainting and resin for the final coats. I saw a show of his students' work and it was astounding. (I can't think of his name at the moment.)

I have heard about this atelier. I think the paint you speak is Patrick Betaudier.

Personally, I have studied the technique mixte with Nicolas Wacker, an old professor at the ENSBA (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris). He has written a book : "La peinture à partir du matériau brut" in wich he explains this technique.

You can use different products to realise the glazes and to obtain the emulsion, but the basical principle is always to paint the emulsion (very lean) over the first coat of glazes (more fat) during the time it is enough wet. Then the glazes are painted when the emulsion is dried. And so...
You can paint a grisaille with the emulsion and then glazing it, but you can also use all the usual colours with the emulsion.

Do you have any images of your paintings on the web?

No, sorry. I have not yet a scanner or a digital camera...

Do you use actually Egg Tempera straight ? I have never use it, only in emulsion with oil and resin. The paint seems to dry very quickly. Is it still possible to obtain smooth blending brush marks only with Egg Tempera ?

Christian

[Alessandra Kelley]

I think most of the people on this forum use egg tempera straight. It does dry awfully fast, so that the methods of blending developed for oils will not work, but there are ways to get smooth blending. Like Rob M, I often "scrub" (with cheap brushes!) to get one color to blend smoothly with another; this works best for me with almost dry brushes, with almost all of the paint wiped out. One can also do the Daniel V. Thompson technique of endless translucent tiny brushstrokes of similar shades of color to blend. I have done this, but the slowness of it drives me buggy.

I haven't done much with any mixed technique, but I can definitely see possibilities.

[Christian Vibert]

Like Rob M, I often "scrub" (with cheap brushes!) to get one color to blend smoothly with another; this works best for me with almost dry brushes, with almost all of the paint wiped out.

Thank you, Alessandra, for your answer.
In fact, I know this way to obtain smooth blending. With the egg/oil/resin emulsion, the paint does not dry so quickly than with egg tempera straight, but the same technique can be used because the paste is very "short". I like this manner to work. I did not know that it were also possible to use it with egg tempera straight.

[Rosemary]

Christian wrote

I have heard about this atelier. I think the paint you speak is Patrick Betaudier.

Personally, I have studied the technique mixte with Nicolas Wacker, an old professor at the ENSBA (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris). He has written a book : "La peinture à partir du matériau brut" in wich he explains this technique.

Patrick was the artist. He used a methyl cellulose emulsion rather than egg as it doesn't spoil and smell. I didn't know about Nicholas Wacker. Is the book still available? I can read French, though not too fast, and I would like to know more about the technique as I am now mostly painting very large paintings on canvas using acrylic and oil rather than smaller egg tempera work on rigid supports. I still use egg tempera for painting for exhibitions of small work such as we have around the holidays.

I tend to blend pure egg tempera by putting on a very light, dry wash of color and following it with a different color, using warm over cool, etc. I have also used the fine crosshatching method by taking a flat brush and cutting out some of the hairs to make many tiny points. My current favorite is a sable fillbert (oval tip) #12 that splays out nicelyand so has not needed trimming. I can't remember what the French term is for that brush shape. I think my technique is similiar to what Alessandra describes. I will have to try her variant with an old brush and more scrubbing than stroking. Thanks to both of you for the info.

[Christian Vibert]

Patrick was the artist. He used a methyl cellulose emulsion rather than egg as it doesn't spoil and smell.

I know that. Nicolas Wacker uses the same product. In fact the traditional emulsion was egg/oil/resin. The modern version is methyl cellulose/oil/resin. The advantage is in fact that the methyl cellulose emulsion don't spoil. It's easier to preserve it. However the handling is not quite similar. The methyl cellulose emulsion is lighter and shorter, but the egg emulsion is more smooth. It's a question of taste. I usualy use the methyl cellulose one because it's easier to prepare it, but for very fine result, the egg emulsion is better.


I didn't know about Nicholas Wacker. Is the book still available?

Yes, it is. Here's the Internet address on wich the book is available.

http://www.okhra.com/@fr/shop/product.asp?pf_id=9782904235672

Nicolas Wacker gives in it easy recipes to prepare glue paint, saponified beeswax paint... and of course methyl cellulose/oil/ resin paint as from current products available on the market : linseed oil, turpentine, damar, beeswax, methyl cellulose glue (in France it's current name is "Alcazit")...

Personally, as from his recipes, I have develop my own recipes which change according to the result I look up. It is possible to use egg emulsion, methyl cellulose emulsion, casein emulsion... It is possible to use damar resin, mastic resin, copal resin... In very little amount , and only for the last coat, it's also possible to add beeswax to the emulsion. But it's not very prudent to glaze with hard resin over it because the paint remains very flexible.

The basic principle remains the superposition of the emulsion coat over the wet coat of oil/resin coat. Than the oil/resin coat is painted over the dried emulsion coat. And so... as long as you want to continue.

My current favorite is a sable fillbert (oval tip) #12 that plays out nicely and so has not needed trimming. I can't remember what the French term is for that brush shape.

I think it's a brush "langue de chat" "tongue of cat (?)" or a brush "usée bombée" "worn and rounded".

Good paint ! :grin:

Christian

[Alessandra Kelley]

If Rosemary wants to try the scubbing with an old brush technique, please be advised that the underlying paint should also be very dry. I find one day's drying time is not enough to prevent paint lifting; a week is good, and even longer is great (I once went back to a painting after four months -- nothing I did could dislodge the underpainting, it was so tough).

[Rosemary]

As usual, this site is a goldmine of information. It is the langue de chat and I am now going to have make a drying rack to dry this little paintings. Our weather is now into the rainy cold season and the egg tempera takes ever longer to dry. Next time I see a used food dehydrator for sale I am going to buy it for a drying cabinet. When I paint large in egg tempera, I put a coat over the whole thing and that takes long enough for the layer to dry. The little ones will need to have a drying cabinet and I will have to work on 4 at once, or so.

[Rosemary]

Thanks again to Christian for info about the Wacker book. I found it on Amazon.fr and it will be here in Seattle November 1. The wonders of the internet!

[Christian Vibert]

Thanks again to Christian for info about the Wacker book. I found it on Amazon.fr and it will be here in Seattle November 1. The wonders of the internet!

So, good reading and painting !!! :grin:

[marknatm]

I think most of the people on this forum use egg tempera straight. It does dry awfully fast, so that the methods of blending developed for oils will not work, but there are ways to get smooth blending. Like Rob M, I often "scrub" (with cheap brushes!) to get one color to blend smoothly with another; this works best for me with almost dry brushes, with almost all of the paint wiped out. One can also do the Daniel V. Thompson technique of endless translucent tiny brushstrokes of similar shades of color to blend. I have done this, but the slowness of it drives me buggy.

I haven't done much with any mixed technique, but I can definitely see possibilities.

What is the "scrub" technique exactly? I'm waiting for the Thompson book, so I expect to see an explanation in his book on the other technique with tiny brushstrokes that is mentioned.

Also, do both techniques result in similar results? Are there any drawbacks or advantages that are specific to either technique?

Thanks in advance,
Mark

[Alessandra Kelley]

Personally, I think Thompson's description is a little stylized. You have to interpret it a bit, or you could end up doing pastiches of 'thirties social realism. That said, it can produce almost everything from Botticelli style (looking like a colored pencil drawing) to Thomas Harte Benton.

My "scrub" technique involves old, short, ratty brushes and a very dry undersurface. As described, I wipe out most of the paint so the brush is nearly dry, then scrub on a layer of color almost as if I am rubbing charcoal with a blending stick. It is in its own way almost more of a drawing style than painting, it's just that it's more what they call "painterly" compared to Thompson's "linear" technique.

They are very different techniques. You can make mist with my scrubbing technique, but you get the beautiful details with Thompson's. I developed scrubbing as a way of dealing with large, subtle blendings, but my main recommendation is to experiment with different ways of applying paint to the board. Give it a try, if you like.

[karen lee]

I too have been interested in trying this technique, but my oil painting instructor states that the paintings of Mark Rothko, who used it on occasion, are in very poor condition.
Anyway, I have been reading Max Doerner's The Materials of the Artist (Harcourt paperback, published by Harvest 1984). On pp. 240-243 Doerner describes mixed techniques.

[paintrman]

Karen, I am with you. I have written papers on the process of oil painting and have seen some tragic things happen when oil painting layers aren't allowed to dry properly. My thinking is that when egg tempera is applied to the surface of an oil painting...it is dry to the touch but is still wet underneath. I keep hearing that the egg tempera is melding with the previous layer. However, if you are working one layer on top of another layer (involving oil paint), the previous layers must be dry before reworking the surface layer (weeks of drying and not minutes) or the top layer which is exposed to air will shrink and crack over time. There are several websites that I have been reading lately on the process like: http://www.rubinovs-lightning.com/
His paintings are amazing. He calls his technique the Misch method. Philip Rubinov Jacobson teaches all over the world and his student's work is also amazing!

Check out his student, Madeline von Foerster at http://www.madelinevonfoerster.com because I think her work is stunning and far better than her mentor! I am simply questioning the longevity of the technique, but then again, I know very little about it. I am fascinated by this technique but can't quite bring myself to try it because of my past experience with not following the rule of fat over lean. I lost almost all of my oils from my college days because I had to rush the process.

[JeffG]

Brigid Marlin's site has a demo of how she used the oil/tempera mische technique:

http://www.brigidmarlin.com/Pages/Mische.html

[jpohl]

Thank you so much everyone for all the links and personal experience... I am just switching from oil to tempera after having two babies, and with little space tempera makes much sense for my studio which is out in the center of the house. (In the winters we have subzero temperatures so ventilation would be an issue for oil.) I have so many oils in process that I will have to put back to start new work in tempera, but after reading Daniel V. Thompson I was holding out hope that I could at least finish a dyptich (oil on panel) with egg tempera. I had been working on for several months before I became pregnant. To be truthful tempera brushwork almost suits the image and the direction I was working in better, so I live in hope. Oil was starting to affect my health and limit the hours I could work even before I had children who I want to protect from the paint fumes. Health reasons aside I am falling for the possibilities I see with tempera. I only hope I have the patience to see it through, and that it will speed up if I stick with it... especially now that the time I have to work is in much shorter supply (basically while everyone else is sleeping).

There is so much information on this website it looks like I also have to fit in quite a bit of reading time.

cheers, jp




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