Painting Senet boxes using Egg Tempera

We decided when we first started creating Senet board games that we'd use egg tempera for any painted surfaces. Egg tempera, also simply called tempera, is a painting medium used since the time of the pharoahs, if not even earlier. It's simply a mix of pigments with a binder, in this case egg yolk. Egg tempera was the primary method of painting until oil-based paints gained popularity in the 1500s.  In the images below, we're mixing pigment with the binder, and have applied a base coat.

Senet box under drawings

These are the penciled underdrawings for two Senet boxes, which will be painted using egg tempera.  The boxes themselves are some of our earlier designs, and have larger overall dimensions.

Silhouettes

Here's an example of where an experiment with one of our early Senet boxes led to a surprising result.  We painted the crane images on bare, untreated pine using egg tempera, and THEN applied the stain.  The paint itself was stripped off, leaving somewhat ghostly silhouettes.  This technique needs perfecting, but we were very happy with the results, despite the loss of the original colors.

Riverbank scene, draft to final

Variations of riverbanks scenes were the first styles we applied to our Senet boxes.  The concept is penciled in, then we paint it using it egg tempera.