Landslide Project

Every Christmas, my father would drag out his old box of tempera powder paints to turn our large living room windows into a Christmas wonderland. He only worked with primary Red, Yellow & Blue along with a green, white and black. Yep that’s it, only 6 colours. This tradition was originally started by my Grandfather.

 

We would spend an entire Saturday or Sunday listening to Christmas music while painting Reindeers, Santa’s, Christmas Trees and even Bells! Anything that resembled Christmas was created with this water soluble powder. Years later, my father handed me this old decrepit cardboard box filled with paint supplies and Christmas spirits. The time had passed to carry on his and his father’s tradition but knew one day, I would make good use of his 6 cans of tempera paints.

 

Fast forward over 20 years, but reverse back to the Medieval and Early Renaissance period, 1500. During the Renaissance period, powdered pigments (such as clay, parsley, herbs) were mixed with egg yolk to create egg tempera. It is noted that every surviving panel painted by Michelangelo was from egg tempera.While mixing the egg tempera (with only 6 colour choices) will be a challenge to give effect to the art I am envisioning, greater detail was had with the sizing, ground and chalk like priming of the hardboard as noted below in step by step process.The pictures and process are updated in descending order with most recent results at the top and the start of the project at the end.