(This post was updated on 20-03-20)
Egg tempera is a semi-opaque, water-soluble and permanent painting medium wonderful for fine art painting, restoration and icon painting. It is perfect for oil painters who need a highly pigmented, fine art colour alternative to oil painting and its solvents, with the lasting luminosity and beauty of Renaissance paintings. Sennelier make this marvellous ready-prepared egg and pigment mixture with just a touch of oil to allow it to be stored.
Sennelier Egg Tempera
The Sennelier paint makers in France make their egg tempera paints with the authentic formulation used since the Renaissance. Much of the religious panel painting done between the 12th and 15th century was done in this delicate and subtle medium, which is capable of detailed and complex effects. Sennelier Egg Tempera is famous as the medium used by Marc Chagall in many of his most spectacular works.
This ready-prepared egg tempera paint emulsion is a water-soluble and highly archival painting medium for fine art painting, restoration, and icon painting. It is perfect as an underpainting for oil painters, or for artists seeking a highly pigmented, professional alternative to oil paints and solvents.
Sennelier uses the same premium quality pigments in this line of egg tempera as they do in their oil paints, assuring the same unequalled vibrancy and brilliance as in the Sennelier oils. The pigments are bound with a centuries-old egg emulsion recipe, giving a satin-matt finish that is water-resistant when dry. Sennelier egg tempera has working qualities and a finish that is only found in authentic egg tempera made in the traditional manner. These delicate colours hold their brush strokes and do not change when dry. Egg tempera can be worked with a brush or a palette knife (diluted with water) on non-greasy supports like acrylic primed canvas or paper.
Impasto techniques are not recommended for egg tempera. It is better to paint in thin layers. Use varnish over egg tempera paintings for an oil painting like appearance. Sennelier recommends giving a finished egg tempera painting a coating of charcoal or pastel fixative before applying a final oil paint picture varnish.
Read these earlier posts about egg tempera on the blog.
Sennelier Egg Tempera is available in 32 colours in 21ml tubes and a starter set.
Postage on orders shipped standard to mainland UK addresses from jacksonsart.com is free for orders of £39.
11 thoughts on “Sennelier Egg Tempera”
…and you views of their paint are….?
Hi Katherine
Nice to speak to you outside of Twitter!
This article isn’t a personal review of the product. It is fact based educational article.
I and some other artists will be doing some product reviews shortly. I hope you can stop by again when those are posted.
Take care,
Julie
I’d love to read reviews about them. I have never painted with tempera before and hope to try soon. Just waiting for my birthday…:D. Looking forward to the reviews.
Hm – this seems to be word-for-word the same as this page
http://www.dickblick.com/products/sennelier-artists-egg-tempera/
Which also seems to lift most of it’s material straight from the Sennelier website.
Hi Richard, yes we got our information from Sennelier, with their approval to help promote their product.
Hi,
I’m a bit confused… when I tried painting with the Sennelier Egg Tempera as it comes out of the tube, I found that it would lift and mix when I attempted to put second and third glazing layers. I am using an acrylic gesso ground.
I thought perhaps I was missing something and supposed to treat the tube contents as a pigment paste, so I mix it with an equal amount of egg yolk as one would do with one’s own ground pigment paste. The result seems to be much better. I can glaze different colours over each other without getting mix through – even when thinned with water. The result, on acrylic gesso ground, is however, what feels like a waxy surface. It can be scratched off, even after 10 days drying, though you do have to work at it.
So my question is: Am I supposed to be using it straight from the tube as opaque layers, or mixing it with egg yolk as described above. If with yolk, does it remain in this waxy state, or will it dry out further?
Would be grateful for some pointers.
Ralph
Hi Ralph
None of the artists here in the office use egg tempera. But I did a bit of on-line research to check things out for you.
This was a superb source of info: http://www.eggtempera.com
It sounds to me like the surface is not absorbent enough. If it is scratching off and each layer is lifting off then I think you will need to use genuine gesso on a wood panel. The acrylic gesso boards seem very absorbent to me when I paint on them in oils, the oil just sucks right in and it goes matte. But the egg tempera must need it to be even more absorbent.
Genuine gesso is made from chalk and hide glue. We sell whiting and rabbit skin glue for making gesso.
Egg tempera is a labour of love using perishable paint and I guess that even includes the surface primer.
This is an earlier post about gesso.
The ready-made egg tempera is considered very good by the serious artists I was reading about. And some do mix it with egg.
It contains a small amount of linseed oil to make it keep better.
This artist, Julie Green, says the Sennelier can be applied a bit thicker than home-made: http://www.greenjulie.com/resources/2011/11tempera.PDF
I hope this helps 🙂
As stated it may be a problem with the
ground not being absorbent enough. An
easy recipe for an absorbent or short
ground would be to use white acrylic
paint, whiting and marble dust. Mix the
whiting and marble dust into a paste
using a little water (50/50 generally, or
more marble dust if you prefer a cleaner
white ground) then simply mix 3x the
amount of white acrylic paint into it. It
gives a similar effect to rabbit skin glue
gesso but is easier to make. Maybe just
try it on a small panel and see how you
get on.
Best wishes
Thank you David, this is really good advice.
Best wishes
Lisa
As a beginner in this medium the above comments are very helpful.
I read recently that a drop of lavender spike oil should be added to
the mix but on Jackson site this seems to be mainly a solvent so
now I’m confused. Does the yoke and pigment mix need oil? and
would a cheaper one be ok? AND further ideas on how to use this in
oil painting, my main working medium?? Many thanks for any
response.
Hi Beverley
Lavender Spike Oil is an essential oil that is very strong and some oil painters use it as a strong solvent (strong, meaning that you don’t need to use very much). The fumes are non-toxic in the studio and some people like how it smells.
Plain egg tempera is just egg yolk and pigment mixed in equal parts with enough water to make the paint the consistency you like to work with, as the water evaporates you add more as needed. You make it up fresh each day or two, you can keep your palette on an ice pack in the studio and put it in the fridge on your lunch break and then add a fresh egg yolk as needed or after a day or two. So this type of paint doesn’t require any preservative as it is fresh.
If you would like to keep your egg tempera longer or make it into an emulsion by adding a drying oil such as linseed oil (which is then called Tempera Grassa), then a preservative is usually added. I have seen mostly oil of clove or vinegar recommended. I have seen oil of spike listed as an ingredient in homemade watercolours, especially if they include honey. The ready-prepared egg tempera in a tube is grassa and contains oil and a preservative (I don’t know what they use).
You can use egg tempera with oil painting in three ways.
1. Underpainting. Paint in egg tempera as an underpainting and when it is dry, paint over it in oils. You can cover part of the underpainting or all of it – a lovely method is to glaze using transparent oil colours.
2. Emulsion. Make an emulsion of egg tempera paint mixed with oil paint, or mix egg yolk with oil of spike and add it to the oil paint or make an oil painting medium with egg yolk, oil of spike and whisk while adding a slow stream of drying oil such as linseed oil (like making mayonnaise).
3. Mixte. A technique called ‘technique mixte’ adds egg tempera on top of a wet oil painting that is just beginning to firm up, it must be still wet so the tempera can sink in, and not sit on top where it would not stick.
You can search these above terms and learn a lot.
Two good sources of information online are
the Egg Tempera Online archived forum
and this Koo Schadler article.
I hope that helps.
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