For Artists/Muralists

Endless creative possibilities with Venetian Plaster

Fresco painting is the ultimate medium for a mural. The greatest example of fresco painting is Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. Fresco is also widely found in ancient Egyptian pyramids, great cathedrals, ancient Rome and Aztec ruins. Fresco is not an 'old world' faux finish as some may think.

If a home has Venetian Plaster, we do not recommend acrylics for murals. Compared to fresco, acrylics will look cheap and synthetic.

There are two types of fresco painting: 'buon fresco' (true or wet fresco) and 'fresco secco' (dry fresco). With buon fresco, the wall is plastered with aged lime and then pigments and water are used to the paint the wet plaster. This plaster absorbs the pigments and the murals become an integral part of the wall; as opposed to just on the surface. When the plaster dries, it absorbs carbon dioxide, forming a thin sheet of crystal or carbonized calcium. This, over a little time, produces richer, more dramatic colors and depth in the mural. There's quite a bit to be said about buon fresco and there are plenty of resources online. We are, however, concerned with fresco secco; dry fresco. Here the artist paints onto dry plaster. Since the pigments by themselves won't stick to the surface of dry Marmorino or Veneziano plaster, a binder is used in our painting medium. An ideal medium is our Lime Paint. It forms both a mineral and chemical bond to the surface of our plaster. It's very workable in terms of open time and shading effects.

Fresco secco should be done on top of untinted (or tinted if you want) Marmorino Plaster, which is a very classic form of lime plaster. You can also use Veneziano. Here, the plaster should be troweled very smooth and floated smooth, and not necessarily burnished. When the plaster dries, sand lightly with a soft sanding sponge or 400-grit sandpaper.

If using Lime Paint as a binder, your colors might come out a little more washed than usual if you don't add enough pigment. But, if you add enough, you can have bright, vivid murals, especially after polishing with #0000 steel wool. You can use Lime Paint for a very soft and muted mural, like in an ancient bathhouse, or you can use it for vivid, crisp works. After you are finished, you can leave it unsealed or use natural or synthetic sealers. These will darken or enrich your colors, depending on the binder and quantity of the binder used.

Fresco painting is very similar to watercolor painting. You can have great precision, at the same time allowing for very gradual shading; which is not so easy with acrylics. Also, the colors used in fresco exceed the richness and luminosity of acrylic paints. Fresco is perfect for rare and beautiful colors like Lapis Lazuli, ground Malachite, ground Azurite, and dozens of others that come from the same soil that Michelangelo's colors originated from. If you use an expensive color, we recommend putting it in water and 5% Elmer's Glue. This gives you a very efficient use of a pricey color without 'whitening' it out before the lime is saturated with enough pigment.

For an excellent reference to fresco painting, pigments and tools, check out www.sinopia.com.

Aside from frescos and murals there are many other creative possibilities with plaster. Please check out our creative techniques and methods section. There are infinite possibilities using plaster in truly artistic creations. You can layer and sculpt in any sheen, color, or textural effect with any combination of lime paint, wax or sealer. You can actually make a mural by just troweling it, like using a knife in oil or acrylic painting. Furthermore, it's very easy to stencil and reverse stencil which ads tremendous possibilities. All this you can enhance with gilding (metallic leaf like gold or silver). Finally, proper lighting plays a great part in the effect. A good lighting system can really enhance or diminish a plaster/lime based work of art.

As any artist knows, it takes a little experimentation to really know the limits of any medium. Play around with it. It's fairly forgiving in workability, corrections and repairs. We recommend this mostly for interiors, or relatively protected exteriors. You can always use sealers for more exposed areas. Lastly, we don't recommend our products to plaster thick molding: artistic or architectural. There are better products for that, such as plaster of Paris.

Please contact us if you have done any fresco or other artistic work with our products. Tell us about your experience with its workability, the binders you used, etc. We would love to see your artwork and possibly exhibit it on our site.