It produces an absorbent ground ideal for the many layers or floats of egg tempera that are applied throughout the painting process. Initially this gesso ground is polished to a mirror like state in order to reflect the image. This reflective surface is so sensitive that all ones mistakes are exposed. Slips of the brush, lapses of concentration, blobs of paint, all can be corrected to a certain degree but they still leave their visible trace. In iconography it is customary not to use ready-made paints.
Egg tempera is the traditional hand made paint used for centuries by iconographers.
This paint is made by mixing artists grade powder pigments with an egg yolk solution in roughly equal parts. I love working with the materiality of pigments, making my own paints gives me a wider and more personal range of colours. For me the Nativity is a complex image as it depicts a celebratory event that is full of enormous poignancy. There s the simultaneous realization of joy, growth, suffering, sacrifice, crucifixion, resurrection, and eternal life. We know the story .