Today is the first time I see and know how a fresco painting is made. I can tell it’s not an easy job at all since we need to spend more time as well as patience to prepare and ready to start. However, when we start to paint, we only have few hours to do before it gets dried. So to me, to create a fresco painting, we really need to have a well-thought-out design of what we want beforehand because the medium doesn’t allow us to make change in many ways.
So what is fresco? Fresco basically is a type of painting done on fresh plaster. They use dry pigment and mix with pure water, then apply to wet lime plaster, but they need to do it fast. When it dried, the colors bonded chemically with the lime and became permanent. So if we made mistakes, we literally would have to be broken off with a chisel and started completely over. In fact, the greatest painter Michelangelo did this several times while he painted the Sistine Chapel, and actually he did an incredible job!!!
While we are making a fresco, I’m actually thinking about Michelangelo and Sistine Chapel. I said wow, that is how he did it. I truly admire his works, and now I know how to make one (even though I just watched), I really appreciate his effort, his time as well as his team to paint the whole ceiling of Sistine Chapel. Although I have read quite many articles about him and his life, his paintings, I still found out more interesting things about him while I do a research for this blog. For example, “Michelangelo painted onto the damp plaster using a wash technique to apply broad areas of color, then as the surface became drier, he revisited these areas with a more liner approach, adding shade and details with a variety of brushes.” Well, it’s literally what we did today, but how he could achieve that high level of details and intense emotion of each figures when he never worked with frescoes before. Other thing I found it’s interesting to me is about the fresco “The Creation of Adam”, they said the ‘strange shroud’ surrounded God and the angels on the right, which theorized that Michelangelo has copied the exact shape of human brain and brainstem. Well, I check and it does look so similar.
I also found out how to touch up a fresco, and it’s also pretty difficult as we paint a fresco too. I know that I would not have a chance to work with fresco, but who knows, so I would post to keep it for future 😉
- Do not start touch ups before 4 weeks, give fresco that long to dry.
- Use casein, apply by means of hatching.
- Try Wax ammonia—mix thick, like soft cheese with very little water—mix with powdered color by rubbing two together with an old round brush and stiple on.
- Use zinc white for white.
- To remove whitewash over a painting—hammer covered with leather, or a wooden hammer—go carefully only for a short time in a given area. Spatula like instruments also help to lift off limewash coat of strong casein, which also helps to lift off limewash.
Work Cited
http://www.muralist.org/fresco/painting.html
http://www.britannica.com/art/fresco-painting
neccitaly 