This is a painting of a wild boar piglet I did recently, it was after Hans Hoffman, the original was painted in Germany in 1578 in watercolour and on paper 15x13” I believe, my version is as close a copy as I could replicate, mine is painted on a 5x7” panel that I made using stretched kelmscott vellum.
This is the original by Hans Hoffman,
This is my painting, 2018 in egg tempera on a 5x7” vellum panel
Egg tempera is the most beautiful medium to use, renowned for its jewel like colours and luminosity, I make up a mix of pure egg yolk and water and I mix that on a large glass palette with the pure artist’s pigments, they are grown together to provide a creamy paint which for me is unsurpassed as a paint, although very time consuming this is my favourite paint to use, As egg tempera is painted in dilute layers this allows the vellum or surface to add a translucent quality to the work, I coloured down the vellum panel with some dry ochre just to give an aged look to the white vellum, and gradually added light to dark colours, I have about 10 shades of ochre, raw and burnt sienna, umbers, ivory black and titanium white. I used the white sparingly as it is an opaque colour and would of covered the vellum too much.
So this is the last stage of painting, gradually adding more texture and light washes although washes on vellum with egg tempera can be difficult as the vellum can rehydrate and wrinkle or the egg tempera can soften and be removed, I found that it was possible if the wash was applied then left to dry and then applied again.
I enjoyed this project and found it fascinating and rewarding to observe Hans Hoffman’s original under such scrutiny, I painted this as a fun and educational project for myself.
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