Recently I was shown some back numbers of The Tempera Society’s Yearbook. I had always believed the classic method of painting in tempera to be laborious, but a study of ‘Questions and Answers’ suggested that it could be hazardous and frustrating as well. The way I am going to describe, though unorthodox, has given me no technical troubles during the past 25 years. Aesthetic problems can never of course, be eliminated.

I paint on hardboard (1/8” or 3/16” thick), primed with Walpamur and petrifying liquid according to the instructions on the tin. Walpamur and is undoubtedly less brilliantly white than gesso, but it is absolutely no-absorbent and mistakes can be scratched out with a sharp knife, which is a great advantage. I prime 6 or 8 large sheets at a time and these last me several years. I saw off a piece of the size required and glasspaper it (1 ½ grade). It is then well washed to remove all dust and is ready for painting.

The medium I use is from a recipe given me long ago by Maxwell Armfield. With the yolk of on egg, I mix 10 drops of spike oil of lavender, three drops of poppy oil and twelve drops of dammar varnish. Theses are well mixed on a marble slab with a stainless steel knife and put in a small glass jar with a screw top. An equal quantity of tap water is added and stirred in with a brush.

The powder colours are kept in jars on a small table of convenient height with a raised rim round. I never put the tops on the jars except when moving house, as the table is covered with a cloth when not in use. I mix my colours in china palettes with hollow spaces, such as are sold for watercolours. I dip the brush in the medium and then directly into the colours and make the mixture I need: if I have two of three mixtures going at the same time I cover them with pieces of wet blotting paper cut to the right size and this keeps them moist for two hours or so. I never grind my colours in advance with distilled or any other water, as I never know beforehand which colours I am going to use, and I am too impatient. It must not be supposed that the powder colours get in any way spoiled by the moistened brush being dipped in, as it absorbs the colour without leaving any of the medium behind. Of course there is a pot of water for washing the brush between each dip, and plenty of rag to dry it on.

The choices and arrangement of subjects take a long time. I then make a careful drawing which I trace. The most difficult part is to get the ground right in colour and texture. I mix up plenty of the desired tone in a small jar with a screw top which can then be kept in the refrigerator for several days, along with the medium. Having mixed the colour, I slosh it on with a big brush and then, before it can dry, I attack it with a large stipple brush (the size of a hair-brush and rather difficult to find nowadays). If texture or tone are wrong, I wash it off and start again. As my pictures are always of objects against a plain background, this is a very important part of the picture.

I then trace the outline of the drawing on the panel, but only the outline at this stage, not the inner detail. I then remove all the background colour where the design is to go. Thus, in the picture illustrated, I removed the background colour from the part occupied by the eggs and the punnet and the bulk of the shavings. I do this with a penknife for the outline and a stiff hog brush for the central area. This sounds laborious but it is essential that the subject is painted over a white ground: this gives it a brilliance in contrast to the background which is always dull and rather opaque.

I then trace the inner details, outline of eggs and punnet, and start to paint. I model in full colour from the start, using a good deal of white (titanium), but the final layers become more transparent. Except for the background, everything is done with a number 1 or number 0 sable watercolour brush. The background colour in its little pot is indispensable when it comes to merging the shadow cast by the punnet with the colour of the background, as it would be impossible to mix it up again exactly the same as the first lot. A painting like the one illustrated would take about a week if the days were reasonably light and long.

Perhaps I should end by saying that tempera has no attraction for me simple because it was used by Italian primitives, most of whose work does not greatly appeal to me. I use it because it is the only way in which I can express the character of the objects that fascinate me. With oil paint I could not get the detail without getting also a disagreeable surface: moreover, I should have to wait while the paint dried before continuing. I use oil paints a great deal, but principally to get strong effects of light and shade and mass, and a picture of that kind would be finished in one long day.