BUON FRESCO MURAL PAINTING

I like painting on tiles, there sturdy and strong and will last 3000 years if kept in a safe place.
10-14-04, 4:15. I've already painted on the slip intonaco and am waiting for it to set to the dry touch. It should take 45 minutes.
These berries look tough to paint. I like 'em tough. One of the two main colors should be solid, the first color down.
6:00, The intonaco is smooth but it's still too soft to paint on. This is going to take at least 5 hours with this light. I could cover in in Saran wrap for the night and day, trowel it when I'm ready to paint tomorrow night.
This fresco is going to have a white surface for me to start on. Even though the sandy colored surface dries white, white is better to start on. It's not that much of a big deal. I'm using crushed white limestone as the aggregate 1:1. But when you add to that white background the other TIP, mixing up a batch of 1:1 titanium and lime paste to use as white you have a WYSIWYG painting medium just like watercolor or acrylic. You have to keep the mixed white wet or lose it.

I laid some gold string on the subject and drew it as a guide on my fresco. In fresco you can cover white with black or black with white.

8:30, igarzone red marks the spots. Dry for fresco It's better then cadmium red in my opinion. So is PR88 Thio red.
9:00, magenta layer finished, I'm going to put in shadow lines to give the branches shape, then go over the areas with a local dark and come up over that with lighter shapes.
9:30, blue branch lines in. Preparing to wet the whole thing with a hake brush.
It was too dry of a mortar, it started setting too fast. It took a lot of water to be sure all the colors I had used were soaking in the mortar not laying on top. As soon as there is no gloss I'll wet it again and wait until that soaks in. What it did was start building up the water barrier of the calcium carbonate crust too soon and I had to break through it with lime water.
10:45, 100% covered, I hope I'm more then 1/2 way finished. I started using my 7/16ths flat bristle bush, I'm working into the surface. It's not as smooth as my wash on wash technique but a lot easier. I gave it 2 more wettings with a spray bottle filled with limewater.
Now I can fill in all the seeds that are not in the forefront. To the bright red and magenta colors I'll wash with thalo blue.

1:00, finished

Hooray! My 30 grams of Sennelier's Quinacridone Red #679, for $55 w/ship arrived. IT IS THE PERFECT MAGENTA BAR NONE. It's Pigment Index Color Number is PR122. This is the dry pigment magenta you need for frescos. Other's may claim to have it but only Sennelier does.

The perfect pigment triad is:
Transparent Indian Yellow (warm yellow-brown) PY153 from Zecchi.
or Transparent Indian Yellow (cooler yellow gr/s PG10F from Senopia.
Transparent Quinacridone Magenta PR122 from Sennelier.
Transparent Phthalocyanine Blue (cyan) PB15.3 from Senopia.
Keep this list as close to your heart as I do, it took testing over $2000 worth of dry pigments to find these gems. At the same time I got a great fresco complete palette.

First is transparent Indian yellow O/s then transparent Indian yellow Br/s

First is an ultramarine blue PB29 ball. Indian yellow O/s PY153 and cyan PB15.3 made a green ball.
Magenta PR122 and cyan PB15.3 made the purple ball, cyan and magenta made the blue ball, Indian yellow and magenta made the red ball.

Oppositions, opaque red PR88, transparent cyan PB15.3. Used each other's color to make a neutral dark shadow.

Oppositions Transparent Magenta PR122, Transparent Green PG35, used each other's color to make a neutral dark shadow.

The black ball was made with this RCW transparent triad.

Testing the PR122 on Magenta Bougainvillea flowers. 4x4 buon fresco.

I drew the wine bottle and crystal goblet on paper first, folded it to be sure of alignment and cut them out.
The intonaco was a thin layer of marble dust and lime 1:1. The base was made in my mold, 3/8th thick lime mortar with metal lath inside. The rough coat was 1:1 medium sand and lime. I grayed the intonaco before applying it.
The paper was laid on the intonaco and wet brushed with a darker mix to get the outlines. The lettering was scribed through the paper.

Six hours later it was finished. PR122, PG10F, PB15.3 plus titanium white.

This is a one hour forty five minute DVD movie. I show how to make a panel in a form to paint on and a ceramic tile with rough and intonaco mortar. Included is how to mix the mortar, and how I paint in three colors only and get full color paintings. Plus a lot of buon frescos done with full paletts. This DVD cost $35 and is 1 hour and 45 minutes long.