BUON FRESCO MURAL PAINTING

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 they closed at night. The intonaco is the same as the painting above, 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.

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.

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

Finished.

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

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.

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.
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.

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 there 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. But it's a nice addition.