Another casein recipe

The experimentation continues ... About a month or so ago, I was working on some casein paintings, and noticed that my casein medium was at the end of its life cycle. Fresh casein only lasts about ten days or so, even when it's refrigerated, and as that batch was getting old, it was getting a cranky, uncooperative "personality." Knowing that I needed some more and not being in the mood to go to the store for more skim milk, I reached for a container of low fat cottage cheese I had in the refrigerator.

I remembered that in the early 15th century, Cennini described a casein glue made from lean cheese, and I figured that a low fat cottage cheese qualified. I washed the whey out of it, rinsed it, and then placed some in a baby food jar with about a half teaspoon of Borax. The Borax serves the same purpose for us today that slaked lime does in many older casein recipes - hydrolysis. It breaks down the curds until what we eventually have is a thick syrup. Using cottage cheese took a little longer to break down than my regular curdled skim milk recipe, but in the end it was a better choice. The resulting syrup was thicker, clearer and more consistent. Still no horrible odor, which is always a plus.

Harry Anderson resources

Harry Anderson was a brilliant illustrator who began his career in the late 1930's, and who turned to egg tempera and casein after developing an allergy to the solvents associated with oil paint. Below are some resources for learning about this amazing casein artist and Christian gentleman.

Harry Anderson and the Art of Loose Realism, by Kent Steine

American Art Archives page for Harry Anderson (Kent Steine article with more images)

Harry Anderson, My Favorite Illustrator, by Jim Pinkowski

Harry Anderson's Watercolour Technique, from Leif Peng's "Today's Inspiration" blog

Harry Anderson images, from Leif Peng

Fresh casein paint

Here's some fresh casein paint, mixed in three different ways. "A" is blue pigment mixed with an equal or lesser amount of casein binder so that you end up with an opaque gouache effect. "B" is the same colour diluted with water for a watercolour effect. "C" is probably 20% colour and 80% binder for a transparent glaze. All are more water resistant than gouache or watercolour.

A good question would be, "Why would you choose 'C' over 'B'?" If you're working with multiple glazes, 'C' would be more water resistant. In other words, you wouldn't be as likely to damage the glaze you're working on top of.

Could you do the same sort of stuff with acrylics or acrylic mediums? Sure. But this is natural, homemade, durable and biodegradable.

A new batch of casein

I've been making a fresh batch of casein from 2% milk this evening. After adding some vinegar to the milk, this is the resulting curd (with the whey drained and the residual vinegar washed out). At this point it looks like ricotta cheese. When the borax has had its effect, the curds will turn into a thick syrup, suitable for mixing with paint pigments (colours) as a kind of tempera paint.

Johniene Papandrea

Here's a casein painter you should know. Johniene Papandrea. She works quite large on muslin in a glazing technique. Check out her web site. Below is a video featuring Johniene.

Work in Progress - Double Portrait, stage 5

I've been dealing with some personal illness lately, which has made progress on this painting go much slower than I would like. But here, we're at the fifth stage of the work. In this stage I'm still using my casein paint in more of an egg tempera style - adding very fine, almost crosshatched translucent highlights to different areas of the couple's faces.

The highlights are done with white, lemon yellow, and just the very slightest bit of black to make the paint look a little "dirty." I'm using more binder than pigment here, because I don't want thick, opaque patches of highlights. As I said, I'm shooting for something very translucent. If you can look at the painting and the highlights stick out like a sore thumb (at least in this gentle lighting), then they were probably done incorrectly.

There are actually two values for the highlights here - one mixture with less white, and another mixture with more white. I used both very sparingly, but the mixture that had more white even less so.

In addition to the highlights, I also did quite a bit of work on the woman's teeth this time around. Teeth are a bit difficult to paint, because if you simply paint white teeth with black lines in between them, you're going to end up with something that looks pretty freakish - like a tiled floor inside of someone's mouth.

Teeth have shadows as they emerge from the sides of the mouth and ride over and under the lips; bright areas where the light hits them; they have curved dimensions (in themselves and as they fit into the mouth); and they are reflective surfaces (picking up and bouncing back faint echoes of the hair, clothing and flesh tones). You can over-do as easily as you can under-do here, and end up with a dingy, yellowish set of gnarly old chompers. This is where the glazing power of casein painting comes into its own. The same slightly muddy white and lemon yellow mixture that I used on the face as a highlight actually turns into a shadow on the teeth! Some of delicate lines in between the teeth were painted with a light blend of white and burnt umber. Then, so lightly that you'd need to be inches away from the painting to even tell, I painted a faint three or four lines of a translucent white and phthalo blue mixture as a kind of "bright shadow" on a few of the teeth.

Casein paint making video from Earth Pigments

Earth Pigments has a new video about making milk based paint which is very helpful, but the actual casein binder (that you see close to the end of the video) is made in a different way than I do it myself. There are many ways to get the job done, so don't interpret my comment as a slam. Earth Pigments is a great company, and I love using their pigments.

The recipe demonstrated in the video (in which the curds or quark is dissolved with lime) doesn't seem to be available on their web site, which is a little unfortunate. It's a truly, perfectly old school way of making the binder, closer to the "cheese glue" described by Cennini in the Middle Ages than more current methods, in which ammonia or borax (which I prefer) are used.

The finished paint that we see in the video looks quite a bit like house paint - and as an alternative to standard acrylic house, furniture or stage paint, I'm sure this is perfect. For an artist's paint, you might want to tweak it just a bit for easel painting.

I personally like a paint which has a bit of "pull" or viscosity to it. To get the thicker paint, I would mix the dry pigments directly with the casein binder. In other words, the key is to use much less water than they do in the video. A "from-the-tube thick" artist's paint doesn't really need it. As long as you can blend the pigment and binder into something with a creamy, satisfying texture, you're okay.

So, even though I might personally change a thing here or there, this is probably the best video teaching you what to expect when making casein paint that I'm aware of. Good for them.