* Hello.
Today we're gonna be going back.
We're gonna be going back to a time before
Copic markers, before acrylic paint, before Bob Ross, before art supply stores. Today,
we're gonna be making and painting with one of the very first paint recipes in recorded history.
If you crack open any art history book
you're gonna see this paint all over the place, from Leonardo da Vinci all the way back to ancient Egypt.
It's one of the most popular paints that have ever existed and obviously I've ever only worked with store-bought paint
so I'm super excited to get into my artist ancient roots and see if it works just as well, if not better,
if not worse and seeing what it was like to be an artist 10,000 years ago.
And before we get into it guys, I'm trying to grow my art TikTok
so it'd be really cool if you guys could go check me out. I've been having such a great time on TikTok lately
so I really hope to see you guys there. And yeah, with that being said guys, let's get into this ancient paint.
Weird angle time!
Now if you guys have watched my other videos on art history in the past,
you guys know that pigment has had a very sketchy past. For example, pigment has been made out of the following things:
*"The Price is Right" theme*
And I know as much as you guys wanted me to paint with cow urine today, that's not gonna be the case.
So today what we're gonna use for the pigment is
chalk pastels. Now, I chose chalk pastels because it's probably one of the most accurate things that we can get to actual pigment.
So the very first thing we're gonna do is crush this up and make some pigments.
I bought this really awesome little handheld grinder just for the occasion. So I'm super excited to use it.
*Music*
Now, I have a really nice crushed up pigment, this looks super, super fine.
So now I'm just gonna dump out all the pigment. Obviously they didn't have paper plates back then.
So now for this next step, I'm not gonna lie, it's kinda, it's kinda nasty. That's because the next ingredient is...
eggs.
(Man 1): I mean, of all the things to choose, why, why in the world would you choose egg yolk?
(Man 2): Well, it had a good consistency and it was very very strong and it would adhere very nicely to the Gesso-prepared wood panel,
And so if it was prepared correctly and then maintained well,
it would actually last a very long time and the colors wouldn't change. It was very stable.
(High-pitched voice): God, I hate eggs.
*Laughs*
I hate eggs so much!
(Normal voice): Separate the egg yolk from the egg. *Grunts*
Gross, I hate eggs.
All right, so I'm gonna pick up some pigment as so, I'm gonna mix it with my egg wash.
Oh wow, it's turning into like, an acrylic watercolor paint. Now, my first impression is that this is so hard to mix,
oh my goodness.
Move that out of the way. All right, so here we go, one of the very first paints to ever exist-
oh my gosh!
Whoa! I was not expecting it to work so well! Oh my gosh, are you guys seeing this right now?
It's, it's almost like watercolor. Oh my gosh!
So I'm gonna add more egg and see if it thins out with egg.
Yes, the answer is yes.
Now, as far as like, the pigment goes, it's not as opaque as I would like it to be.
I'm gonna try to add pigment directly on the wet paint and see what happens.
Bro!
Amazing, this paint is actually working right now. I thought it'd be really streaky and silly but no, this is like, incredible,
it's almost like, dare I say, oil paint.
Now, when I was researching this, one of the things that I found was that if you add a little bit
of vinegar to the mixture, it changes up the paint just a little bit
so let's try adding a little bit of vinegar and see what happens.
Back in the medieval times, if they didn't have a substance like vinegar, they would literally just use pee.
That's it. That's all I had to say. Oh and sometimes they would even use earwax. So...yeah.
This kind of reminds me more like ink than it does actual paint.
It definitely does give it a different texture and it's definitely taking much longer to dry.
All right, so we'll crush up a purple and we'll see how it mixes.
*"The Price is Right" theme*
Eh, they mix okay, it's kind of difficult.
I would give it like, a three out of ten because that's just not it, sis. And back in ancient times, you would see that they
wouldn't really blend this paint. Instead, what they would use is kind of like, a gradient effect.
(Man): What artists did was they would lay one color down and then they would place very very
thin fine lines of another color on top of that.
(Rae): This kind of reminds me of gouache.
You know how gouache kind of has like, that weird watercolor acrylic mix to it? That's kind of what this is.
Alright, and now let's go in with the gouache and see if we see any major similarities or differences.
The gouache is a little bit thicker and it's way easier to blend out. I don't know, now
I'm getting kind of like, watercolor vibes out of the egg tempera.
Huh.
Now for the water color, I'm just gonna use actually my oldest art supply, which is this watercolor that I've had since I was fifteen.
(Sarcastic): Wow. *Clapping*
Mm-hmm.
Okay. Yep, there we have it.
It's definitely most like watercolor, but it's not like watercolor because they didn't use it on paper.
(Man): All these paintings were on a wood panel, like I said, and the wood in Italy was always poplar wood.
Ooh, it's all dark and spooky in here! As you guys know, I've been doing artwork for a very long time,
I've tried pretty much every art supply under the Sun and I can confidently say that I have never ever worked with an art supply
that looks like watercolor but sticks on like acrylic. And by the way,
because I know some of you guys are curious, it doesn't have an odor, it literally smells like nothing.
Now to be as traditional as possible, today
I'm going to be painting with a piece of wood because they used wood back in the medieval times.
And I'm also gonna be prepping with Gesso. Now,
you're probably thinking like, "Great! They didn't have Gesso back then!" But, surprise to me and you, they did have Gesso.
(Man 1): So did they put something sort of as a, as a barrier in between?
(Man 2): That's right, they had to prepare the surface of the wood to make it completely smooth and completely non-absorbent,
and for this they used something called Gesso.
Which is like a liquid plaster that artists still use today.
(Rae): Now for a little bit of drama, a little bit of tea,
normally we would cut into the painting section,
but I started painting and I immediately noticed, somethin' ain't right. The paint was not working at all,
it was sticking to each other, it was clumping up, it was making this weird texture stuff that was like, flaking off.
It just was not cute. It looked nothing like the videos that I had seen.
I even tried it on watercolor paper to see if maybe it was just the canvas that I was using.
Not just once, but twice and still the paint was just coming out so bad.
*Goat screaming*
So I did a little research into a different recipe and in the new recipe,
which works so much better, you use the egg yolk instead of the egg white, you mix it with 50% water
so it's like half and half and
lastly, you add the tiniest dash of vinegar. And already, it's looking so much more promising than the previous one!
*Sad guitar music*
Oh my gosh, this process is super super messy. All the little pigments fly everywhere. So now that I have the new recipe here,
let's test it out and see if it works better. And by the way, this is a LOT of binder for just one egg,
so if you ever were gonna make this paint, just know that it only takes one egg.
Dip it in and just like last time, I got it all saturated on the brush.
So I'm just gonna swirl this around and get a little tiny bit of paint like this.
Boom!
Beautiful.
I can't believe how much this looks just like watercolor. Let's try out this blue now.
Now I'm gonna mix the two. Like, look at that! That looks just like watercolor. Oh my gosh.
Crazy stuff!
This recipe is so beautiful.
So now that I know how to actually make this paint,
I think I'm ready to try it out. Just a quick little painting, nothing too fancy. I'm not gonna be da Vinci up in here.
Now I really enjoyed the transparency of this paint,
I really love how the wings came out because the paint just naturally was very transparent.
But on the opposite hand,
I didn't like how transparent it was because I couldn't layer and I couldn't get as opaque as I wanted it to and that's a little concerning,
because when I was watching the educational videos, they said this:
(Man): Egg tempera paint is not transparent and it also dries very quickly
and it's very hard to blend on the surface of a painting.
(Rae): And when they say the paint dried quickly, they're not kidding.
At times, it would dry so quick that it would dry directly on the brush before I even got a chance to put it on the wood.
*Music*
And because the paint isn't water-soluble, it was pretty much impossible
to layer on top of each other without ruining the bottom layer as so.
It's picking up the paint underneath it, which is not the move.
And even though I spent a really long time
crushing up the pigments, there were still little chunks of chalk throughout the paint that would flake off occasionally and don't get me wrong,
it's not all negative about this paint. There was one thing that I thought was very very cool about this paint.
And by the way, if your paint dries out like these clumps that I have here,
all you do is add more water, mix it right back up and boom! You got a brand new solution.
So this is not a wasteful technique at all.
I can confidently say that this paint is one of the weirdest, strangest paints that I have ever worked with in my whole entire life.
Every single characteristic of oil paint, this is the exact opposite of that. It's the Waluigi of the paint world.
So if you're really interested in art history and learning old art techniques,
I think this paint is fun to mess around with, you know, but if we're gonna compare it to modern-day paint,
I would say that there's no competition. Like, the availability, the colors, everything on modern-day paint just far surpasses this paint.
But it is cool though!
And so anyway guys, if you're interested in art history
I will leave my whole entire art history playlist down below
and if you want to know more about this paint, I will link some educational videos down below and yeah,
with that being said guys, thank you so much again for watching and I will see you next video. Bye!