Many times I have been asked how I made the transition from watercolour to egg tempera.
There was no simple answer and many attempts found there way into the waste bin.
For me, tempera was an extremely difficult medium to learn but I was up for a challenge. First efforts were a total disaster.

I therefore decided to accomplish some finished paintings in stages. I used a rigid watercolour board as the support. The background was painted using watercolour. The area to be painted with tempera was repeatedly covered with a number of layers of tempera until the support lost its full absorbency.
I was then able to build up the layers.

As I gained experience and many more waste bins of discarded ‘works’ I progressed and started painting foregrounds and then finally took the leap and started painting skies!
I have to add that at this time I was using Rowney tempera paints and it was not until a few years after my first efforts that I started to make my own paint in the traditional way.

One of the first paintings to incorporate tempera. The background has been painted with watercolour, the latch and string in tempera. The painting was done on a rigid watercolour board.

With a little more experience the engine and the foreground are painted in tempera. The sky and signal box are still in watercolour. Also painted on watercolour board.

And after much more experience and having learnt to make gesso panels the whole painting was done in egg tempera. Since this painting my watercolour tubes have been gathering dust.

The paintings done with a combination of watercolour and tempera have lasted extremely well being now some 20 years since they were done.