Butterflies

The egg tempera part is finished on the first of the two panels. I am going in to the framer's tomorrow to choose the frames and get that started. As soon as I am finished with the egg tempera on both paintings, I will put them in the sun for a day or so to have them set up. Then, I will apply an egg/oil layer to keep the egg tempera from sucking all the oil out of the glazes. That can be a catastrophe because it completely changes the color of the glazes and makes it blotchy. I am still experimenting with the formulas but I think I have it figured out with the help of a couple of books that I recently got in the mail. Here is a peek at the first panel that I finished (before the glazes).

The layers of egg tempera are going on smoothly. I just wish that I would remember that this seems to work best if applied from light to dark...like watercolor. Here is one of the two butterfly paintings so far. It is not quite finished as you can probably see by looking at the yellow butterfly. Once the egg tempera stage is finished, I will start glazing with oil paints. I have chosen several that are very brilliant and yet transparent.

Here is the same painting with the first coat of egg tempera on the butterflies. This is to cover up the smudges on the white panel and to start blocking in the color. The top butterfly is really more blue but overall I saw more green. I am looking forward to making it more and more blue.

In this photo, you can see that I have cleaned up the image and put in the shadows. I also worked on the highlights. Now, to start the butterflies...

Here is Invocation 1. I masked off the butterflies and splattered the background to look like granite. The problem I encountered was that I lost all of the information I had put in first. The pentagram was painted three times. What a waste of time. Nest time I will draw the butterflies and then mask them off and splatter...leaving the pentagram and symbols until last. I can draw on top of the egg tempera!!! Why do I always forget that?

OK, here is what they look like today-