Right now I’m lost. I don’t know what to draw, what to do, what my future holds. My art right now is all over the place; you can see the “Mayoi”, or uncertainty and hesitance, in all of my works from a mile away, because it’s always there. I think one way to tackle my Mayoi is to try as much things as possible, and see if something clicks. But even that may not be enough.

I tried to paint a full piece with Children’s Tempera Paint that I purchased at a local craft shop. I thought maybe I could potentially get away with creating paintings without spending a fortune on art supplies.

I sketched a small illustration with a red pencil. I’ll probably paint this again because I think I can do better with a different medium.

I looked up some egg tempera techniques, although a totally different medium, and tried my hand in glazing. From what I understand it’s the process of putting down multiple layers, from light to dark. Since each stroke is visible, I used small brushes and sewed in each stroke.

The yellow was surprisingly vibrant, but the other colors needed multiple layers before they actually showed some hue.

The consistency of the paint is that of yogurt that’s been sitting out of the fridge for a while; creamy and wet. Despite the wetness, the paint did not go on smoothly. It took several strokes to stick, and adding water to it just made the already transparent paint more transparent.

Aaaand finished! The total time it took to paint this was 20 hours. It was more than I wanted to put in a small test piece, but I needed to finish it, or I’d be regretting everyday in the shower for the next few months.

I think this was a cool experiment. This paint has many cons, but I think it’s possible to create great art with it on a small budget. You just need lots of patience and time to layer the colors on. It’s a paint that I’d use for thumbnails and quick sketches when I want some colors.

Thanks for reading. I hope someone finds this review (?) useful in some way.