Koi Fish - Tempera Batique

    This was one of my favorite pieces to create so I thought it would be a good one to share on my blog! This type of painting is called Tempera Batique or also known as Tempera Batik. Koi Fish is another piece that was apart of my AP Art Studio portfolio. It was a concentration piece that my teacher assigned. 

    The assigned concentration pieces were my favorite part of my portfolio because we used a different medium or did the piece is a different painting style so it was very interesting to get to do art pieces I wouldn’t normally do on my own. Tempera Batique paintings are much different than regular paintings. Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying paint that consists of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Batique or Balik is a method of patterning fabric or paper using melted max. This creates a barrier, or resist, to prevent dye from coloring the waxed areas. 

    I started out the process by sketching my idea on sulphite paper. Sulphite paper is also referred to as construction paper but its not the cheap construction paper found in craft stores. It is made from the process of extracting the lignin from wood chips and producing pure cellulose fibers to make the paper smooth, white, and thick enough to withstand a good amount of water. After sketching out my idea on the paper, I started to paint with tempera paint. Tempera paint dries very quickly and it normally applies in thin, semi-opaque or transparent layers. Once I applied all of my paint, I covered the entire paper with black ink and let it sit to dry. Once its dry I took it over to a big art sink and washed away all of the ink. This step covers all of the water paper with ink where I didn’t apply the paint. Tempera paint is also water proof so it doesn’t allow the ink to stick to it while is how the ink washes away. 

    This was one of my favorite pieces to create because it has such a different process than other painting mediums.