'Youniverse' painting & process

Hi friends, I wanted to share with you the first painting I made at the Vienna Academy of Visionary Art, two years ago. This was also my first time working in the mischtechnik (German for 'mixed technique') which involves building up the light in the painting using egg tempera and glazing transparent layers of oil paint. Here is a photograph of the finished piece:

When looking at an original mischtechnik painting it appears to be glowing from within as light doesn't simply reflect off the surface of the painting but actually travels through the transparent layers of paint, reflecting off of opaque highlights underneath.

This technique was first introduced to me by the wonderful artists Kuba Ambrose and Vera Atlantia (if you are not familiar with their work, I highly recommend checking it out) during my first trimester at VAVA in the autumn of 2016. Below are photos documenting the process of creating the painting:

First, the values of the image are built up using white egg tempera over the red imprimatura (the first layer of paint to cover the white of the canvas).

Then after glazing with transparent oil paint more egg tempera is applied, and then more glazing.

The painting is refined more with every layer and interesting optical colour mixing effects can be achieved (which photos are powerless to capture)

If you enjoyed this post I would greatly appreciate it if you leave me a comment, upvote or resteem.
You can follow me @philjoannides to see more of my work in the future and I invite to have a look at the paintings I've already shared.

For inquiries about purchasing paintings or prints you can contact me at [email protected]

Thanks for looking!