Teaching Haleakala Waldorf School Buon Fresco, Day 1

Dear Teacher Mr. Palmore, and 20 Great Students,

Thank you for being so quick to learn and being such good artists. Neatness and cleanliness are always important and all of you have it under control.
Sorry the pages take so long to open, they are big pages with a lot of good information in them.

Grace, thanks for the homemade cookies, Mr Palmer, thanks for seeing this fresco idea through, from teaching the students how to make quick lime and doing it.. to completing the mural painting phase.

To All, In five day's, by May 4th, 90% of the changes to the mortar and pigments in the buon frescos you painted will have happened. The other 10% wil continue to happen for a year.

The colors are going to lighten, some pigments won't have absorbed for one reason or another. These colors were as colors having been painted on in secco after the mortar stopped absorbing. Color without binder.
Or maybe too much pigment was a applied at one time and clogged the absorption process.
The mortar will also become hard in time, very hard. If the intonaco was applied to a moist enough rough coat and it wasn't more than 1/8 an inch thick, it shouldn't crack. All of these things we will see..

Any loose pigments that didn't absorb can be bound into the lime with permanent acrylic binder. Technically they won't be Buon Fresco anymore, they will now be a Secco Fresco. Both will last a long time. Perhaps there will be no problem, we did do everything right.

When I come by in another week, with a CD of our whole process, we will go over what has happened to the frescos individually. I am very proud of all of you.

Ms. Rilles, the links are fixed on the fresco site, thanks.
And thanks for joining us and painting two buon frescos.

Your Friend and Mural Teacher,

Don Jusko
POB 791569
Maui, HI
96779
808-280-4406
donjusko@realcolorwheel.com

Every school day, Teacher Mr. Palmore's seventh grade class starts with a little poem and stretching exercise to bring the class and their being's together.
Good morning class!

Day 1: 4-26-4, 8:30 to 10:15. We talk about pigments and paint, check out our brushes and any other equipment needs.
We will use one 8x8 and one 12x12 ceramic tile as the base of the fresco.
Students will work from fully colored sketches (drawings) that they have previously done.
One piece will be "a painting from life". I will allow one piece to be from something they have already entered into their "Main Lesson Work" over the year if they choose.
We introduced ourselves and I introduced fresco painting to the class.

We made our intonaco mortar from our slaked lime, 1:1 with a small grit sand. Tomorrow we will add another equal part of large sand into the intonaco mortar to make the first rough coat on the tile. Safety first, we all are wearing latex gloves.