Basic Ingredients & Bonding Agents

 

Ingredients to combine into your Egg Emulsions
Egg	Yolk and/or White
Oils	Standoil, Popyseed, Linseed
Varnishes	Damar, Copal, Crystal, Alkyd
Waxes	Carnauba, colorless Bee wax, Saponified wax
Gums	Arabic, Damar, Mastic, Dextrine
Preservatives	Clove Oil, White Vinegar, Milk of figs
Diluant	Distilled Water

Useful informations

 

1 egg yolk (skin off)	15 ml	1 TBSP
1 egg white (eye removed)	40 ml	2 TBSP + 2 tsp
1 full egg	60 ml	4 TBSP

Do your manipulations with the most hygienic care possible. Avoid using metalic instruments as the egg can be affected by rust. Prefer glass or plastic instruments.

Weights and Measures Use Cups, Measuring Spoons and graduated Syringes (clean up with egg yolk).
1 tsp (tea spoon) = 5 ml - 1 TBSP (Table Spoon) = 3 tsp = 15 ml (ml = cm3)
1 L (Liter) = 1000 ml (Milliliter) = 1 kg (Kilogram) = 1000 g (Gram)
Kremer, Conversion of Weights and Measures
It is also possible to think by volume with a simple jar: Take a tube like jar, fill it with your first ingredient and make a mark to indicate the level of the content. This will become your volume of reference for the rest of the Emulsion.

Egg Emulsion Recipes

Egg Tempera | Egg Oil Tempera

 

Egg Tempera

It is recommended to experiment pure Egg Tempera first before Egg Oil Tempera. Start simple using a medium composed of the Egg Yolk itself with just a little bit of distilled water. It can be used on paper without any preparation and be worked as Aquarelle or gouache. Nevertheless it is far better and more easy to work than water color. Also it can be used on stones, plastered walls or gessoed boards for sophisticated accomplishments.

Egg Yolk Emulsion - very Polyvalent
Ingredients	Volumes & Proportions
1 Egg Yolk without the skin	15 ml	1		15 ml	1
Distilled water	0 ml			5 ml	1/3
(White vinegar for preservation)	(5 drops)			(5 drops)
Stir and gently shake the jar, eventually filter it

Egg White Water Varnish - glue for gold leaf
Ingredients	Volume
1 Egg white betted into snow	40 ml
Collect the over night juice of the preparation

 

Egg Oil Tempera or Tempera Grassa

After experimenting pure Egg Tempera, you can get involved with Egg Oil Tempera o Tempera Grassa. To do so, combine the yolk with one or more of the Basic Ingredients. The most important ingredients are Damar varnish and Standoil, followed by Clove oil and Popyseed oil. The final property of your paint will be the addition of the different specific proporties from each one of the components included in different proportions in your emulsion. So it might be a good idea to do a preliminary test for each ingredient separatly with pigments. Basicly, an Egg Oil Tempera will be an adjustment between Egg Tempera and Oil painting. There is no standard recipe. What makes the richness of Egg Oil Tempera is that there are numerous and unlimited formulas. It is important to keep a personal book record where to write down each recipe you experimented, with acute appreciations and suggestions for improvements. Your emulsion will evolve accordingly to your experience gain through practice. After figuring out what does each specific ingredient, you will progressively adjust the composition of your Egg emulsion to your personal technical requirements for better achievements. You will probably continuously experiment and create new Emulsions.

Steps and Procedure

Carefully separate the yolk from the white. Roll the yolk gently around on a paper towel to rub off as much white as possible. Hold the yolk and puncture its sac. Let the yolk flow into a clean jar, eventually squeeze out the yolk. Little by little, stir your mixture of resinous, oily and waxy ingredients in the yolk and shake the jar. (If you use a kitchen electric blender be cautious about rust). Then if the white of the egg enter into your composition add it after having removed the germ. Keep mixing while adding your last ingredients such as preservatives and distilled water. Once the emulsion is done keep it into your refrigerator for long conservation. It will be usable as long as it will keep a clear smell. If done properly it can last for more than one year. For your daily use poor out a part of the emulsion from your main jar to a smaller container, for instance, a nostril plastic atomizer or a glass droper jar. Avoid contaminating your main jar to preserve your emulsion as long as possible.

Egg Yolk Oily Emulsion
Steps	Ingredients	Volumes & Proportions
1	1 Egg Yolk without the skin	15 ml	1	3/4
2	Linseed oil	5 ml	1/3	1/4
3	White vinegar	(5 drops)

Egg Yolk Oily Emulsion
Steps	Ingredients	Volumes & Proportions
1	1 Egg Yolk without the skin	15 ml	4/6	15 ml	1	3/4
2	Standoil	2,5 ml	1/6	5 ml	1/3	1/4
	Damar varnish	2,5 ml	1/6
3	Clove oil	10 drops

Egg White Emulsion for illuminations on parchment
Ingredients	Volumes & Proportions
1 Egg white betted into snow	40 ml
Mix with honey or sugar	5 ml
Collect the over night juice of the preparation
let soak granuls of arabic gum in the juice	5 ml

Egg Yolk & white Oily Emulsion
Steps	Ingredients	Volumes & Proportions
1	1 Egg Yolk without the skin	15 ml	2/6	15 ml	1/3		15 ml	60 ml	2/3
3	egg white	15 ml	2/6	15 ml	1/3		40 ml
2	Damar varnish	7,5 ml	1/6	15 ml	1/3		15 ml	15 ml	1/3
	Standoil	7,5 ml	1/6
4	Clove oil	10 drops

Egg Yolk & white Oily Emulsion
Steps	Ingredients	Volumes & Proportions
1	1 Egg Yolk without the skin	15 ml	2/6	15 ml	1/3		15 ml	60 ml	2/3
3	egg white	15 ml	2/6	15 ml	1/3		40 ml
2	Damar varnish	7,5 ml	1/6	15 ml	1/3		15 ml	15 ml	1/3
	Standoil	7 ml	1/6
	Popyseed Oil	0,5 ml
4	Clove oil	10 drops

Use & Practice

According to your choice of use & practice, you will have to adapt the fluidity of your medium.

Water Grinded Pigments
Slowly grind clay pigments into a paste with distilled water. Use a glass muller on a sandblasted piece of glass or marble. If you don't want to get through this truble, you can put the pigment and the distilled water in a sealed jar and shake it, it will work for most pigments. Try to get a non liquid past and to avoid it from drying, add some water on top of the past. Keep your titanium white into dry powder form. When ready to paint, scoop out some of the pasted pigment on the palette and mix it with a plastic palete knife, around 1 part of past for 1 part emulsion. If you want to experiment without investing into dry pigments powders, temporally replace the paste by the paint coming out from water color tubes.