How to Make a Fresco Painting
Affresco ( In English usage, "fresco" ). Painting done on freshly laid wet plaster with pigments dissolved in lime water. As both dry they become completely integrated. Known as "true" fresco, this technique was most popular from the late thirteenth to the mid-sixteenth centuries,Pandora Necklace. The common assumption that all mural painting is fresco painting is an erroneous idea. It is true that one can in fact paint on fresh plaster, or intonaco, to make a painting in affresco or a fresco. In true fresco the artist must start applying his colors on the wet (or fresco) intonaco as soon as it has been prepared and laid on the wall. The colors can thus be absorbed by the wet plaster. When it dries and hardens, the colors become one with plaster. After preceding coats are completely dry, depending on the size of the panel 2-7 days, apply an "Intonaco" - final, painting coat on the day of painting. It will help to grind the base pigments with water into the paste in advance, storing them in sealed glass jars, this way in the morning (before the painting begins) there will be more time to prepare tone mixes. To start with, try about 12 different colors. Use freshly ground dry lime mixed with water as white (pigments mixed with lime and lime mixed for whites can not be saved). Your mixes should be done ONLY with distilled water. The best working pigments in fresco are the earth oxides and other mineral pigments. Some pigments will not work with lime plaster at all - some man made greens change to yellow when being mixed, as well as many other modern day pigments except the ones that specially formulated for the use with plasters. Test the colors in advance by mixing little portions of them with lime. The under-painting is done with terra verde (green earth pigment) with shadows enhanced in umber (picture on the right) or with other colors, but remember in fresco it is not possible to completely paint out a "wrong" color therefore every tone should be carefully planned. Time to finish the detail pickup and blend color tones by passing over and over with lairs of transparent color at (this stage the color mixes should be "wet" again). Painter must work fast and precise at this stage because "golden hour" also means that plaster will soon "lock up" - stop receiving paint (the paint will change to much lighter opaque tone as soon a it touches the plaster - that is it put the brush down!). One thing to remember is that in the next seven or so days following the painting the fresco will be undergoing the curing stage and this is a confidence test for the Artist. Colors dry at different speed and plaster is naturally compacted unevenly although it looks flat and perfect changes to white faster in more compacted areas. These are to of many other factors that make color in fresco change into discouraging cacophony for the first few days after the painting is finished. But do not worry in about 7-10 days it will look even more beautiful and just a little lighter then the day it was painted.
Lime Putty the essential ingredient for the Fresco Painting hard to find and costly. Here is the video tutorial on how to prepare it from the common contraction Type S Hydrated Lime:
In its essence, fresco or fresco painting is an - application of natural mineral pigments to a surface on which a following chemical reaction takes place: Ca(OH)2(s) + CO2(g) ----> CaCO3(s) + H2O(l)
Calcium Hydrate (burned lime stone or marble mixed with water) combined with carbon dioxide resulting in the formation of Calcium Carbonate - lime stone, marble. It is like "Painting with molten Marble".