Pigment and eggs!! - Egg tempera session at Art Skills Club at Letchworth Art Centre

At Art Skills Club, the club I run for 11 - 16 year olds at Letchworth Art Centre, I have been on a quest for the students to work with the best materials I can get my hands on. I brought in my own pigments for this session, along with eggs, vinegar and emulsion sized paper. The students had never seen real pigments before, let alone painted with them, so there was a lot of oooh's! and aaah's! at seeing just how strong and intense the colours are.

The students got to split the eggs to get the yolks, mix in water and vinegar and start to work in the dark layers up, egg tempera is all about dark tones to light. It's a naturally streaky paint to use, and needs a great many layers to build up to get the richness of egg tempera, but at least the students got to experience the feel of self made paint. It was a great session to run....