Painting on Location
BUON FRESCO MURALS

by Donald A. Jusko

BUON FRESCO TILE PAINTINGS

Painted From Life, #40, pg10

BLUE BOTTLE and FOUR RED HIBISCUS
12"x12" on tile

This one was different, the flowers didn't cooperate. The wind blew the bottle down, they started drooping and didn't stop. The second picture is 5 hours later. I didn't remember the flowers closed at night. The intonaco is the same as the painting above, pit lime 1:1 marble dust. It's a nice workable surface but I think the fine sifted crushed limestone is better, and it doesn't take another layer.

setup end of setup

First the drawing, mark the top, bottom and two sides. Center line the bottle.
Second, use a big brush, get the outlines of the major items.
Colors; Priderit yellow, irgazine green, Thalo blue, ultramarine blue stabilized, viridian, thioindigoid red, permanent red, quinacridone magenta, cadmium orange.

drawing with a brush first wash of color

Flower wash layer #2 and background, flower wash layer #3.

second wash of color and background 3rd wash of color

Finished.

Finished


To start with, great news, all of the Irganzine colors proved to be lime safe in a 5 day wet lime jar test.

HALA FRUIT, from the the Air Pineapple tree.

This uneatable fruit has the same double helix pod formation as the pineapple. The pods when dried, has hair fibers like a pointed brush. It was used as a brush when painting tapa cloths as decoration.
The gold cloth background should be interesting to paint. Looking at it I see three main colors. The reflected highlights, the fold shadows and the design which stays the same color over the highlights and shadows.

The Palette. Start with a good sized butcher tray, it's a great fresco palette. The pigments I put out according to the scene, bismuth yellow, cad. yellow light, cad. yellow medium, organize green, Indian yellow Br/s, burnt umber, yellow ocher golden, yellow ocher deep, quinacridone magenta, phthalocyanine blue PB15.6 the transparent ult. blue, PB15.3 the cyan transparent and viridian. I had put out the opaque yellow oxides because I thought I might need them, I didn't. The main colors in the gold background were organize green which is a green-gold and quinacridone magenta PR202, Indian yellow also came into play. Basically, that's the gold background.

palette setup

7:00, start.
7:20, It's still loose mortar, now was the time to add big color because it will set unmovable so early.
8:08, starting lines of demarkation.


8:47. I'm starting to add some lime and titanium 1:1 into the pigment. This keeps the tint drying the same color as when it was wet.
10:00, another photo, just coated the whole fresco down with lime water.
11:18, It's comeing along fine. I've been using my trowel to blend some colors togather, it works fine, delicate really.


12:00 AM, it's a real plesaure to be able to stroke limewater right over what you painted and it not move. It's at the fun stage,
12:45, finished.

finished Hala fresco

10-15-04, it's been drying, I shot this photo in the sun.
Indian yellow has actually become more intense. Look at the 'z' scribble just under the hala. All the Indian yellow strokes dried bolder. What I should have done was washed the whole background in it and built up color or to white. Instead I matched to the wet colors I did use and the yellow oxides dried lighter then I had planed. The chemical colors including cadmium yellows and burnt umber also stayed their applied color. I don't work much with oxides any more, the transparent watercolor technique is easier. Plus I get the added pleasure of going back to white with titanium and lime.
Fact is.. I haven't used burnt umber in my last 20 frescos. Even though it's easy to make it's a nice addition.

2 days later, Hala fresco




NEXT FRESCO PAINTING #41, Royal Palm Berries
PREVIOUS FRESCO PAINTING #39, Five Bromeliads, Two Lillaquoi's

LET'S TALK LIME paint on a lime support, BUON or SECCO FRESCO.

Or a MILK, CASEIN, EGG, OIL OR SYNTHETIC PAINTING MEDIA.
I haven't done any painting with milk yet but I saw a picture
of a blood red, small barn that pre-dates oil paint, still standing.
Maybe milk and ammonia (casein) can be balanced to outlast oil.
All you'll need is the dry pigment, milk and a drop of casein.
Milk and egg would work too. Alum would bring the media
to a oil consistency, it dries clear and doesn't yellow.
Acrylic medium would work also. Isopropyl
or denatured alcohol dissolves acrylic.

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