Fresco boards and tiles with their development history,
Making Fresco Panels
Board D2, 02-26-04, D2= 8x12, alum, glue binder, 1 limestone crushed and sifted for the larger grit, 1 medium #1-20 sand, 1 lime, 1:2. READY
8:00 4-12-4, finished intonaco on Board D2, alum added. I will let it set, covered, until tomorrow before painting on it. Darn, I forgot to cover it and had to put a new intonaco layer, alum added.
4-13-4, 5:00, New Intonaco finished.
7:30, still a little wet, I'll wait.
9:30, it has a new crust on it, I painted on a couple coats of limewater and now it's absorbing very well.
9:35, maybe I don't want to stay up until 2:30 this morning. I'm making a box for all my fresco pigments and new colors are arriving any day. I must have the box ready. And.. I'm teaching fresco to a class of 7th graders next week so I'm making a few different sizes and shaped trowels out of plexiglas to save some costs, the students will make their own. I'll shoot a picture of them and make a page to link to making trowels.
Aureola Cherries, Buon Fresco, 4-16-4
4-16-4. 1:48 PM, This panel's intonaco has been wet for four days. It looks like a horizontal crack may be beginning on the top, about an inch and a quarter down. Water soaked in faster along a line. I'm going to paint the board anyway because it's ready.
There is a aureola cherry tree in the back yard here, I picked some since they are in season.
I made the drawing with green oxide and Quinacridone red. The board is very heavy with limewater. No lime cream was added to any color, only limewater.
2:07, I laid the panel on the floor and sprayed it twice, completely covering it with lime water.
The background is a mix of ultramarine blue and vine black.
4:45, sprayed it again with limewater.
5:40. finished. The colors use were; Ultramarine blue dark, vine black, Quinacridone red, quinacridone magenta, yellow ocher, Cadmium yellow, viridian, green oxide, titanium white.
5-14-4, Cracks happened, four rows vertically and one horizontally. The paint chipped off along these cracks. It's like the pigment absorbed into a thin layer of lime that became unattached.
This is scary, did the cracks cause the paint to flake..
Board J, 11:30, 03-13-04, added a second rough coat to Board J, scrubbed it and added no glue, 1 lime, 1 small limestone, 1 medium sand. READY
Intonaco, 4-16-4, 3:05 PM, Kept it wet until 1:00 PM 4-18-4.
Red, Yellow, Green Peppers, Buon Fresco
I oiled and put the peppers on tin foil.
2:30, sprayed it with limewater.The local colors are in, cadmium yellow, cadmium red, veridian, next the shadow colors.
2:45. brushed on limewater all over, this is a simple painting, well it looks simple, I wet it all down because I'm still on the peppers and haven't touched the background. Because it's silver it's going to take awhile.
turquoise is the opposite of this red scarlet pepper, I don't have a turquoise, thalo blue and thalo green mixed will do.The green pepper is on the cool side, making the opposite shadow color scarlet. The yellow pepper is glowing warm within, just like the Vesuvianite crystal which is like the pigment Indian yellow orange side. A color I can't get dry. The powers that be don't deem it important enough to sell. I do have the brown side though, and cadmium orange so it's Ok.
This is the Vesuvianite crystal.
VESUVIANITE, Ca10Mg2Al4[SiO4]5[Si207]2[OH]4, H7, SG-3.3,
MAGNESIUM, wants to go dark and opaque, or transparent, either way, it does it with flair.
ALUMINUM, yellow, transparent, standard #1[YYYY], and blue, transparent, standard #7 [MMCC], opposite colors that center to neutral. Crystals in the tetragonal system, some masses in the orange or azure range. By centering yellow to brown, the three analogous colors of this gem, yellow-green, yellow and orange go to brown. On the other side of this analogous range is blue, blue crystals were found in Norway. Idiochromatic.
4:15, brush the fresco down with limewater again.
5:15, brush it down again. The peppers and shadows are finished. It looks good with a white background..
5:45, Finished, I put a minimal couple of strokes for a base and left the background white. Already colors are locked in solid.
The colors used were; Cadmium red, cadmium yellow, Indian yellow, cadmium orange, light gold ocher, quinacridone magenta, thalo blue, thalo green, viridian, titanium white.
5-14-4. Pigment flaked off the green and red peppers with my fingernail. The flake has a white underside. Maybe less lime in the mortar so the pigment will have to sink in more to hold.
It might be a good idea to let it dry overnight (8 hours) to harden a little and wipe the crust and a little lime off the top layer with a limewater damp sponge in the morning. I had good luck with this technique but haven't used it lately. This has to be done quickly, not letting water soften the intonaco. If you're not quick you will have a rough intonaco to paint on.
I'm also going to paint a clear layer of skim milk as a final wash.
This 8x8 tile intonaco was made on 4-26-4 with 1:1 lime and small sand. I painted it 9 days later. I kept it wrapped in plastic and wet it every 3 days. I was teaching a fresco class at the Haleakala Waldorf School's seventh grade. We all made a 12x12 and an 8x8 rough and intonaco layer on a ceramic tile. I just couldn't get to it for more then a week.
I kept it wet while I was painting it also, the colors absorbed beautifully.
This is me at class.
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