As of today, I can officially say that I have made art with eggs!
Tempura is a painting medium that uses powdered pigments and liquid binding agents. Those binding agents can be made out of different types of oil or egg yolks. Of course, oil is what is usually used today, but during the Renaissance egg yolk was the primary binding agent.
In our class today, we got to witness the process that Renaissance artists went through in order to make tempura paint and got to try painting with it ourselves. To say that the experience of painting with tempura gave me a newfound respect for the artists of the Renaissance would be an understatement. The paint was so fast drying that I had to work in tiny quick brush strokes that I could not go over again and fix. That made just getting the base of my painting take a long time- and I still had highlights and shading to do!
All in all, what I took away from this experience was an even greater respect for the artists of the Renaissance and their work. I cannot imagine how long they had to work on their massive masterpieces!
Swanson School of Engineering 