How to Draw Panel Painting Art

What You'll Need

• •A seasoned wood panel, or a rigid archival panel for a modern substitute; use thin wood battens or a cradle on the back to reduce warping.
• •Traditional preparation materials: rabbit-skin glue or acrylic size, linen, chalk gesso, fine sandpaper, bole, and a small relief tool or sculpting spatula.
• •Egg tempera supplies: fresh egg yolk, distilled water, mineral or earth pigments, small ceramic dishes, and pointed brushes in several sizes.
• •Gold leaf or metal leaf, gilding adhesive or traditional mordant, a soft gilding brush, and a burnisher; imitation leaf is suitable for practice.
• •Acrylic or gouache paints, modeling paste, metallic paint, and matte medium as accessible alternatives to some traditional materials.
• •Digital tools that suit the style: a pressure-sensitive tablet, a painting program with textured brushes, layer groups, clipping masks, symmetry guides, and a custom hatch brush.

Step by Step

1. 1

   Prepare the wooden support

   Choose a flat, dry panel and lightly sand its surface without rounding the edges. Seal the wood with glue size or an appropriate archival sealer, then add a thin linen layer if you want a more traditional, stable ground. Apply several thin coats of gesso, allowing each coat to dry before adding the next, and sand until the surface is smooth but not glassy. Leave a little wood grain visible around the back and outer edges if you want the finished panel to feel aged.

2. 2

   Plan the hieratic composition

   Make a small thumbnail that places the central figure or subject frontally and gives it the greatest scale and visual authority. Arrange secondary figures, symbols, columns, arches, or decorative borders symmetrically around it, using clear vertical and horizontal alignments. Keep the silhouette readable before adding detail, and reserve the brightest gold and strongest color for focal areas. Transfer the design to the panel with thin charcoal, red chalk, or diluted paint, then reinforce only the essential contours.

3. 3

   Create gilded gesso relief

   Build raised ornament with thick gesso, modeling paste, or traditional relief compound along halos, borders, crowns, lettering, architectural moldings, and repeated motifs. Apply it in controlled layers with a small brush, piping tool, or relief spatula, allowing each layer to dry before sharpening the edges. Add shallow incisions or stamped patterns while the material is firm but not fully hard. Keep the relief slightly lower in secondary areas so the main halo or border remains visually dominant.

4. 4

   Apply bole and metal leaf

   Brush a smooth layer of red, yellow, or brown bole over the areas intended for gold, taking care not to bury the relief pattern. When the bole is dry and even, apply gilding adhesive or a traditional water-gilding layer according to the product instructions. Lay the metal leaf onto the tacky or activated surface with a soft brush, then gently press it into the raised details. After it sets, remove loose fragments and burnish selected passages to a bright polish while leaving other sections matte for an aged contrast.

5. 5

   Mix and establish mineral color

   For egg tempera, separate an egg yolk, remove the membrane, and mix a small amount of yolk with roughly an equal amount of water; prepare only what you can use soon. Disperse small amounts of pigment in water first, then combine them with the binder until the paint flows like thin cream. Block in jewel-toned areas such as deep blue, vermilion, malachite green, ochre, and violet with several transparent-to-opaque layers. Keep the gold uncovered and paint around its edges with a small pointed brush.

6. 6

   Model faces, hands, and major forms

   Begin with a middle-value local color rather than pure white, then build lighter planes with increasingly opaque tempera. Use short, controlled strokes that follow the structure of the forehead, nose, cheeks, fingers, and neck instead of blending everything into a smooth gradient. Place the darkest accents in eye sockets, hair masses, garment openings, and contact shadows, then add small light accents sparingly. Preserve the graphic contour so the forms remain solemn and icon-like rather than becoming naturalistic portraits.

7. 7

   Construct hatched drapery

   Paint the garment base color first and indicate the large direction of each fold with a slightly darker mixture. Add parallel or crossed hatch marks that follow the fold's curve, changing their spacing to suggest turning planes: tighter marks for shadow, wider marks for light. Use a lighter opaque stroke along selected ridges, but do not outline every fold equally. Repeat the hatch direction consistently so the fabric reads as designed pattern, not random texture.

8. 8

   Add architecture, borders, and surface age

   Create an architectural setting with simplified arches, columns, steps, panels, or hinged wings, keeping the perspective symbolic and orderly rather than fully realistic. Use repeated geometric borders to connect the figure, frame, and background, and echo important shapes around the composition. Once the paint is dry, add restrained scumbles of umber, gray, or muted gold near corners, edges, and recesses to suggest an aged wooden surface. Test distressing on a spare board first, because too much abrasion can make the image look artificially damaged.

9. 9

   Finish and protect the panel

   Inspect the work from a distance and strengthen only the focal contrasts: central face, hands, halo, key folds, and major architectural divisions. Clean stray pigment from the gold with a soft, dry brush and sharpen selected contours with very thin paint. Make or attach an architectural frame, shallow box frame, or hinged side panels that repeat the panel's geometry and colors. For a traditional surface, use a compatible conservation-grade finish only after the paint is fully dry; avoid heavy glossy varnish if you want the quiet, egg-tempera appearance.

Going Digital

Work on a warm wood-colored base layer with a subtle grain texture set to low opacity, then organize the image into groups for drawing, relief, gold, tempera color, and frame. Use hard-edged brushes with pressure-sensitive opacity for mineral color, a speckled brush for gesso, and a narrow custom brush for directional hatching. Place the gold on its own layer and combine a bright yellow-white highlight, orange-brown shadow, and noise texture so it does not look like flat yellow paint. Add relief by duplicating border shapes, offsetting a darker version beneath them, and placing a small light edge on top; finish with restrained grain, scratches, and color variation rather than a strong all-over filter.

Common Mistakes

FAQ