Today, finally, I got down to experimenting with egg tempera, having spent the best part of a week putting off the need to actually commit to it. There is, however, just so much time you can pass preparing the gesso surface before taking the plunge. The task turned out to be more difficult than I envisaged, but for different reasons than I had anticipated. At every turn I seemed to be confronted by crucial ambiguities in the instructions i had derived from various sources.
How about this one? “Add a little gelatine to some warm water.” Yes, OK. How much water? How warm? What is meant by “a little”?
Or this one? “Tempera colours, when mixed, don’t keep very well.” I’m sure that is true, but does that mean that they will be useless if left overnight? How do they compare with acrylic colours?
Incidentally, I have now come to appreciate why it is that the old monks insisted on thirty layers of gesso as the required foundation for a good ikon. They were chronically unable to commit themselves to actually making a start to painting, and deferred that for as long as they could. Perhaps the ancient manuscript sources which contained the instructions for painting contained as many ambiguities as the ones I have met, and it took them all that time to reach key decisions.