Painting on Location
by Donald A. Jusko

Buon Fresco Paintings from Life
pg1 #31 to pg12 #42
Total= 37 Frescos


Fresco boards and tiles with their development history, Making Fresco Panels


Fresco Painting, #31, Page 1, IS THIS PAGE 1, #31, SCROLL DOWN.
Bird of Paradise Flower
Fruit Fresco #1
Fruit and Red Flower
Bananas and Yellow Flowers

Fresco Painting, #32, Page 2 contains;
Little Gymnast
Flowers, Apple and Orange
Plumerias and Bananas
Border Design
Flowers #1
Self Portrait #1 Age 63
Self Portrait #2

Fresco Painting, #33, Page 3 contains;
Bottles and Frame
Bottle, Orange and Frame
Two Vases One Bottle
1 Bottle 2 Vases and Flower
Green Mangoes
Red Flowers and Green Mangos

Fresco Painting, #34, Page 4 contains;
Pink Anthurium and Red Vase
Green Mangoes on Green Background
Yellow Fruit and Veggies
Green Mangos on Magenta Background
Basket of Pink Flowers #1
Basket of Pink Flowers #2.

Fresco Painting, #35, Page 5 contains;
Aureola Cherries
Red, Yellow and Green Peppers
Yellow Peppers, Teach Buon Fresco at the Maui Waldorf School

Fresco Painting, #36, Page 6 contains;
Wooden Eagle
Gladiolas
Blue and Red, Flowers

Fresco Painting, #37, Page 7 contains;
Odd Fruits

Fresco Painting, #38, Page 8 contains;
Red Wine Bottle, Lime and Two Glasses

Fresco Painting, #39, Page 9 contains;
Five Bromeliads, Two Lillaquoi

Fresco Painting, #40, Page 10 contains;
Blue Bottle and Four Red Hibiscus

Fresco Painting, #41, Page 11 contains;
Royal Palm Berries

Fresco Painting, #42, Page 12 contains;
Upcountry Maui Flowers and Magenta Orchards



Bird of Paradise Flower, Buon Fresco

Board Z2, intonaco on 2:00
Acrylic bonder on rough coat.
Acrylic bonder in intonaco side 1.
Rabbit skin glue in intonaco side 2, really dries mortar, I had to add a little more lime and lime water.

3:00, Painting. It's slow to absorb at the start while the mortar is soft, soft enough for the softest brush to make a mark. It takes about 5 minutes for the sprayed color and shine to dissipate. As the absorption time decreases the mortar gets harder. I'm using an air brush for the background, it takes many passes. I think it would have been faster with a big brush loaded and used during the later faster absorption period. That was a first thought.. More spraying as time went on made a very nice background.

4:20, I was painting the "Bird of Paradise". Our neighbor down the street has a whole clump growing. No drawing, just painting the flower with sure strokes. By
5:50 blending was fun and I could see light at the end of the tunnel. I know I have another 2 hours of absorption time and I'm just floating along. I can't tell the difference between the rabbit glue side and the adhesive/binder side. I hope neither side cracks. I'll know in 2 days. Neither side cracked. Test results have show not to use acrylic glue adhesive/bonder.

6:15, Finished, Pigment colors: Titanium White, naples Yellow, Viridian Extra warm side, Cadmium Orange, Cobalt Blue Light, Thioindigoid Red, Thalo Blue.

cialis kaufenColor drawingprogression

Buon Fresco

Fruit 1, Buon Fresco

Board L, 02-29-04 L= 9x12.75, glue on board mortar applied on wet glue in the center, glue in mortar, large sand and small sand, 1:2.

11:20, 1/8 inch intonaco on board L. Binder in mortar. Not too wet, not too dry.
I went to the supermarket and bought some fruit.

12:45, I'm ready to paint, there is still a slight gloss on the surface, I'm a little concerned about that, especially since I'm going to be working on a 45 degree tilt.

2:20, still not up to the instant absorbing but doing well. I'm still painting on the background.

2:30, It's there! perfect absorption! still on the background silk. This is when the blending is the best.

4:15, still going very well.

4:30, intonaco still soft enough for my brush point to stick in the banana and leave a mark.

6:00, finished. That's about five hours painting. I really pushed it to the limit of time. The colors I used were, Titanium white, naples yellow, cadmium yellow, Cadmium orange, Thioindigoid red, quinacridone magenta, viridian, Thalo green, chromium green oxide, cobalt blue light, thalo blue, caput mortum.

9:00, it's cracking. I think it is because I sealed the base coat. The intonaco must have water to draw from. The next morning it came to me, the reason the Bird of Paradise fresco didn't crack and the Fruits did is because, I scrubbed the rough coat surface of one and not the other. The next day the cracking got much worst and the fresco seems to be following the path of John Portrait 2 which I also didn't scrub. The Bird of Paradise I scrubbed.

Don working

drawinghalf way

finished buon fresco


Fruit and Red Flower

Board O, 9:00, 8x12. 03-13-04, Intonaco test added to Board O with the base coat scrubbed like the Bird of Paradise fresco, which didn't crack. The new intonaco coat with 1 lime and one fine crushed limestone, has had large and medium sand added to it. 1:1:1.5. It's 1/8 of an inch thick, The base coat was hard scrubbed and adhesive/bonder painted on before the intonaco was applied, just like the Bird of Paradise.

2:10, start painting, 5 hours after laying the mortar. I just couldn't just let it dry as a test. Painting was different, there was a thin crust that had to be removed with the first stroke, then it painted alright. Thioindigoid red was decidedly better than cad red in application.

2:50, finished. I took out my trusty #9 Series 7, loaded it up and stroked. The white background fell like leafs in the wind. What the heck, I was ready to just let the board lay there and dry up. I could always scrub off the color if it cracked and add another layer of intonaco. I was fired up with abandon.. So it's finished, caput. Caput Mortum started this whole thing, it was used for the drawing.
The colors used were: Caput Mortum, Naples Yellow, Titanium white, Cadmium Orange, Cad red which was a miss-fire, Thioindigoid Red and Thalo Blue which together knocked out the background pronto. Not a crack in sight, so if it still looks good after 12 hours I'll be glad I did it.

11:00, no cracks! Scrubbing the rough coat was the answer!! Pity I had to lose two good frescoes.

buon fresco

TIPS: Red lightens with orange not white. Use a coffee filter set in a tea strainer to filter the crud and crust out of your lime water. Use a porcelain flower palette, styrofoam egg carton or small cups for small amounts of lime water in for dipping your brush after you have cleaned a color out of it, use the cups to reload the brush before picking up more pigment.

painting setup

This is my painting and computer setup, I paint, I type, I paint. My van is set up to do it all, tomorrow I'm getting a cell phone with an internet connection. My first phone in 27 years.
Next month at this time I should be in Upper New York starting a 4x7 foot mural. I am the Traveling Artist, FOB Maui, Hawaii.

Bananas and Yellow Flowers.

3-16-04, Yesterday evening at 6:30 PM, I laid a 1/4 inch top coat of 1:1 lime and small grit sand on a soaked, fired tile, called Board Tile #1. The tile was sealed on five sides with a water based polyurethane, the same varnish used to finish my acrylic paintings. The sixth side would get my rough coat.
At 12:30 AM, I noticed the mortar was still wet because of the cool night air. I moved the panel into the refrigerator in hopes of working on it in the morning.
1-17-04, 9:25 AM, Out of the refrigerator and started painting.
10:15, still cold.
10:40 still cool.
I'm very excited about this test, it looks good so far, no cracks and it was still absorbing when I stopped. The refrigerator slowed down the setting process so I was painting 15.5 hours after laying on the top coat.
9:30 PM, It cracked.. another fresco lost. Maybe 1/4 inch intonaco was too thick. I'll try 1/8 inch tomorrow.

buon fresco start

buon fresco finished

NEXT FRESCO PAGE #32, Seven Frescos, Little Gymnast, Self Portraits, frescopaintings2.htm

PREVIOUS FRESCO PAGE #30, President of the Fresco Society visits, frescoonionstrawberry.htm

edu., art: Use a new, different, color wheel and palette that matches the light and shadows with pigments.




3 Fresco DVD $35
5"x5" Laminated Real Color Wheel $10.00.