Egg Tempera

Egg tempera is one of the oldest stable painting mediums in the European tradition, and at June's Tempera & Distemper workshop with New York painter Jan Dickey, it was the medium everything else circled around. The recipe is almost absurdly simple — pigment bound in egg yolk — but the behavior of that binder rewards real attention.

What it is

The binder is the egg yolk only — never the white. To separate it cleanly, crack the egg and pass the yolk back and forth between the two shell halves, letting the white drip away. Then roll the dry yolk gently across a paper towel to shed the last of the white, pierce the membrane (the sac, including the chalaza) with a pin, and squeeze the liquid yolk out into your container. Discard the membrane — it carries sugars that attract bacteria.

Keeping it alive

Fresh yolk binder lasts a day or two on its own. To extend it, add a few drops of clove oil or 1–2 teaspoons of white vinegar as an antimicrobial; refrigerated, this can hold for several weeks.

Mixing and testing

You can thin the yolk with up to 50% water. More water makes the paint flow but weakens the lamination — push it too far and there simply isn't enough binder to form a strong film. The reliable test: brush a thin layer onto glass, let it dry, and try to peel it. A healthy mix lifts off as a single clean film. If it crumbles, you have too much pigment or too little binder.

How it behaves

• Always semi-transparent — this is structural, not a choice, and it is the basis of glazing and verdaccio underpainting.
• Quick-drying, but it stays water-reactivatable even after drying (unlike acrylic).
• Dries to a slightly waxy surface quality.
• Carries a subtle yellow tint from the yolk that fades with UV exposure over time — it is not a permanent cast.

Why it lasts

On a rigid panel, egg tempera is more stable than oil paint. Medieval tempera panels show essentially no cracking, while oil paintings of the same age craze and split. Oil largely replaced tempera not because it was more durable but because it was more flexible (it could go on canvas) and more waterproof. But oil grows brittle as it ages; egg tempera on panel simply outlasts it.

Supports and relatives

Egg tempera works on a gessoed wood panel, on paper, and even on silk mounted to panel. A close relative is glaire: egg white only, whipped extensively and left overnight, the foam scraped off and the remainder used as a binder for illuminated manuscripts. Glaire is more transparent than yolk tempera with a slightly different sheen — and, being sugar-rich, more prone to bacteria. In his own practice Jan pairs egg tempera with casein: the egg for translucent glazing, the casein for opaque, matte passages.

Jay's Studio Note

What surprised me most was the longevity inversion — I had always quietly assumed oil was the "serious," permanent medium and tempera the fragile antique. It's the opposite: on panel, the egg outlives the oil. That reframed the whole afternoon for me. The peel test on glass also stuck — it turns the recipe from a number you memorize into something you can read with your hands. We're keeping a small jar of clove-oil yolk in the studio fridge now, and I like that the medium asks you to stay close to it: it spoils, it reactivates, it remembers water. After years of acrylic's indifference, a binder you have to keep alive feels like the right kind of demanding.

References

• Jan Dickey, Tempera & Distemper Workshop, Material Memory Studio, Seoul, 7 June 2026. Jan Dickey is a New York-based painter, curator, and art writer. Jan Dickey at Material Memory Studio
• Cennino Cennini, Il Libro dell'Arte (The Craftsman's Handbook), c. 1400 — the foundational text on egg tempera technique in the Italian tradition
• Theophilus Presbyter, De Diversibus Artibus (On Divers Arts), c. 1100–1120 — early medieval source on glaire and illuminated manuscript preparation