Hyperrealism with Tom Mulliner

Day 7 | Drying Oils: Why Linseed, Walnut, Poppy, and Safflower Behave Differently The Chemistry of Binding Agents: From Egg Tempera and Linseed Oil to Modern Acrylic Polymers Linseed Walnut Poppy Safflower Four major drying oils in artists’ painting: linseed, walnut, poppy, and safflower, each with unique chemistry influencing color, drying rate, and longevity. (Original infographic) It’s 1434. The ultramarine blue of Van Eyck’s Madonna of Chancellor Rolin (Louvre) glows almost freshly-mixed. Yet, centuries of pigment brilliance depend on a battleground we rarely see: the humble drying oil. What made Van Eyck’s medium behave differently from a later, Turner sky or a minimalist 1960s acrylic? The answer lies in ancient seeds, chemistry, and perhaps, in your studio practice today. Chemistry of Drying Oils: Foundation of the Film All drying oils are tri...

Gum Arabic and Watercolour: Polysaccharides, Flow, Rewetting, and Light Binding Agents Masterclass, Day 6 Gum Arabic Watercolours Winsor Lemon Alizarin Crimson Binder for pigments Gum Arabic: The invisible force binding pigment into luminous watercolour washes. A glassy polysaccharide resin, it mediates pigment flow and transparency. ( Source: Tate, 2024 ) It is late 18th-century London— The botanist Joseph Banks returns with exotic acacias. By candlelight, chemists extract a sap so versatile it will write, paint, and even sweeten medicines: gum arabic . To this day, nearly every watercolour—Turner’s vaporous sunrises, Cézanne’s crystalline washes, and your own palette—owes its shifting, rewettable luminosity to this unassuming exudate from wild trees. The Chem...

Day 5 — Casein: Milk Protein, Alkalinity, and the Forgotten Workhorse Binder The Chemistry of Binding Agents • Masterclass Day 5 Egg tempera taught us that proteins can make paint precise. Animal glue showed how collagen can prepare a surface. Casein brings the protein story into another register: milk chemistry. Long before “modern” water-based paints became normal, casein offered artists, decorators, designers, and mural painters a tough, fast-drying, matte paint made from a milk protein that becomes useful only after chemistry unlocks it. Casein paint begins as milk protein chemistry Casein is a milk protein. In paint, it is made usable by alkaline treatment, then binds pigment into a matte film. Casein milk protein Alkali makes casein soluble pH↑ Paint Original infographic: casein p...

Day 4 — Animal Glue and True Gesso: Collagen, Chalk, and the Perfect Tempera Ground The Chemistry of Binding Agents • Masterclass Day 4 Yesterday’s encaustic lesson was about a paint film that answers to heat. Today’s binder is quieter but just as important: animal glue. It is the invisible protein network beneath many historic panel paintings, the material that sizes wood, binds chalk or gypsum into true gesso, and creates the smooth white ground that made egg tempera’s precision possible. If egg yolk is the paint’s disciplined hand, animal glue gesso is the prepared stage on which that hand can perform. True gesso is a protein-bound mineral ground Animal glue binds chalk or gypsum into a sandable, absorbent surface for tempera and gilding. wood panel glue size coarse gesso layers fine polished gesso paint and gilding Original infographic: tr...

Encaustic: Wax, Heat, Resin, and the Paint Film That Never Truly Dries Binding Agents Masterclass Day 3 • The Chemistry of Binding Agents: From Egg Tempera and Linseed Oil to Modern Acrylic Polymers Egg tempera is a binder of discipline: thin strokes, dry surfaces, and patient optical building. Encaustic is its hot-blooded cousin. It asks the painter to think with heat. Pigment is not suspended in drying oil or egg yolk, but in wax: a thermoplastic material that becomes workable when warm and solidifies as it cools. That single difference changes everything: handling, equipment, studio safety, surface, texture, repair, and long-term vulnerability. Portrait of the Boy Eutyches, A.D. 100-150, encaustic on wood. Public-domain image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, object 18.9.2. 1. What Encaustic Is, Chemically In encaustic painting, coloured pigment is held in wax. The Metropolitan Museum of Art explains that for the Roman Egyptian mummy portraits, “enc...

Day 2 — Egg Tempera: The Lipoprotein Emulsion That Painted the Renaissance The Chemistry of Binding Agents — Masterclass Day 1 of 21 Before linseed oil swept the studios of Northern Europe in the 15th century, the panel paintings of Italy were almost universally bound with one improbable material: chicken egg yolk . From Duccio's altarpieces in Siena to Botticelli's mythologies in Florence, the glowing surfaces of late-medieval and early-Renaissance painting are the chemistry of a single emulsified protein-and-lipid system at work. This is the story of the binder that built the Western painting tradition — what it is, why it works, who used it, and how to handle it yourself. Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus , c. 1485. Tempera on canvas, Uffizi, Florence. One of the largest surviving egg-tempera works on canvas. Image: Wikimedia Commons / Uffizi Galleries (public domain). 1. What is egg tempera, chemically? An egg yolk is not just "fat" — it is a natu...