Hello! i am making fresco panels out of 1/2 plywood, with tar paper, then the metal lathe staples on, then the scratch, brown and final painting coat. The combo works well, only they are very heavy, especially if you want to hang it on a wall. I have also done the ones with just the metal lathe as Gary described. They also work, but aren't easy to frame as the others are.... I have customers who want them framed to hang. so what it comes down to is I am trying to find a lighter panel which I can frame. Any reason why i can't use a thinner wood? I mean you don't really need the wood at all, so I should be able to get away with a 1/4 plywood instaed, right? I coat the wood anyway with an oil base primer type thing to protect it from the wetting.... Can anyone give some advice or experience on this subject?
Thank you!!!

>Hello! i am making fresco panels out of 1/2
>plywood, with tar paper, then the metal lathe
>staples on, then the scratch, brown and final
>painting coat. The combo works well, only they
>are very heavy, especially if you want to hang
>it on a wall. I have also done the ones with
>just the metal lathe as Gary described. They
>also work, but aren't easy to frame as the
>others are.... I have customers who want them
>framed to hang. so what it comes down to is I am
>trying to find a lighter panel which I can
>frame. Any reason why i can't use a thinner
>wood? I mean you don't really need the wood at
>all, so I should be able to get away with a 1/4
>plywood instaed, right? I coat the wood anyway
>with an oil base primer type thing to protect it
>from the wetting.... Can anyone give some
>advice or experience on this subject?
>Thank you!!!

the plywood there is to give some strength and protection to otherwise brittle plaster. 1/4 inch should work fine for small panel, for large panel it would be useless. Rivera built his stationary wall/panels without backing and they can be moved, but plaster does not like to be moved around so if you are making them to be moved around the strenght should be in the frame (backing would be part of it)

also if you panel is not bigger then 16X16 or so - you dont need so many coats.

Dear Ilya,
Here I am a year later, and I still am trying different things for this problem. I now have a series of panels ordered which are all largish( 20x24, 12x18, etc. ) and am trying to work out a method. They want to be framed, but no glass.
I saw this website link from France- http://www.atelier-st-andre.net/en/pages/technique/fresco_technique/portable_fresco.html#Anchor-La-6934

Has anyone tried welding their own frames to plaster into? What does that involve? Is that conceivably a DIY thing, or would I need to call a machine shop?

I like wooden frames, but there needs to be something to attatch it to..

Any other ideas?

Also, they mention a lightened concrete. Has anyone tried this? It also says they don't make it in the US, but when I spoke with a contractor, he said he does use something which sounds like that on floors.
I only use portland cement in the first coat, but what about it???

Thanks so much!!

I replied here:
http://www.truefresco.com/dcforum/DCForumID1/256.html

in addition, welding has to be done by specialists in the metal shop.

so if your panel is around 24X24 then you dont need metal frame. you can use marine plywood and staple chicken wire to it and build the plaster on that. You can also attach wooden frame to it prior to plastering, just tape it (frame) out when plastering, this way it wont get dirty.

for smaller sizes - ceramic tiles of 12X12, 16X16 and 18X18 is all you need.

There is a lite-weight cement material called "Structolite", which is a white powder with a kind of 'popped-rock' in it. It is half the weight of cement. But it's also half the strength and works best on small panels. 16X16 inches would be the largest practical use , I think, haven't pushed its limits. I mix it will portland cement , in parts 1:1, then add sand. Too much sand will make it crumbly. I made several 14X14 panels with it and EML ( metal lath ), made them very thin, barely enough plaster to 'key into' the lath. They don't weigh much more than a big dinner plate when dry. Two coats of lime morar will almost double the weight, but even so, they are very portable and hangable.

for a small size like 14X14 and upto 20X20 there is really no need for a panel - ceramic time with a thin coat of lime plaster will do just fine.

A ceramic tile square still feels too heavy , but you're right about it working well, simple to buy and use, no panel construction necessary. I guess I'm still on the quest to find some perfect light-weight support. Structolite is not the perfect answer, but it helps on small frescoes to reduce the heaviness. And it's too crumbly to use by itself, needing to be mixed with portland cement and some sand.

You lost me here:

ceramic tile 1/4 of an inch

coats of plaster - regardless how light will be much thicker and heavier.

What did i miss?

The problem here is that having multiple coats, just for the structure prevents/impairs the understanding of the more important function of the coats - such as control of "moisture saturation"

anything thicker then 1/2 of an inch can only be used on the wall or panel with minimum size of 15-20 sq foot.

else it keeps too much water or if moistened lightly "drinks" and evaporates water too fast to paint properly.

There is some confusion here. Maybe I could take a photo of a recent home-made tile and paste it into a reply message. You could see better what I'm trying to say . What's a good file-size for images, and how do I do it?
I remember when visiting your workshop with you last summer that you had some masonite panels with burlap glued to them and one thin coat of intonaco layer on them for painting. Very light-weight. You said that they were simple but effective supports, although the painting time is limited ( three hours approximately)so they were more for practice. So what I'm trying to do Ilia , is make something thinner and light-weight like that, but permanent, made with cement, lime, sand, etc. for more painting time. I need at least 6 hours of painting time, hopefully more. 8 hours is best; after that I get too tired to see what I'm doing. So, I try to make a support that's 1/8 inch thick, with metal lath and cement-sand-structolite, then put two layers of lime putty on it...one rough layer and one intonaco layer. A more solid version of your masonite panels, but not as heavy as a ceramic tile.

well 3 hours is more then enough to paint 20X20 size fresco.

Painting longer than that on 1-2 sq. feet is not a right thing to do, technically it will destroy the "skin" and cause other complications.

as of burlap ones - you forgot 3 hours is the time I have to wait before the plaster is ready to paint. On ceramic tile, I start painting within 10 minutes.

in reality the only support that will give you 8-12 hours of real open time is a wall that is at least 10X10 feet.

you can upload picture here - jpeg under 150 kbytes should worjk just fine

Ilia
I don't know if the two images uploaded or not. If so, the first one is a full view of homemade panel with one brown coat, and the second is a photo of the panel's edge.
That was very interesting, what you said about three hours being enough time for any fresco up to 20X20. I sense that you have really simplified your idea of fresco over the last few years, going from your all-day demonstration painting of the girl on the beach, to a broader approach. Yes? No?
Makes me wonder if maybe the masters , like Michelangelo, only painted half-day giornatas too, rather than the marathon day and night sessions that I have been imagining. What do you think?
I may try to simplify my fresco panel-paintings, using bigger brushes, fewer colors, and less time, and not try to hard to make fully realized pictures.

The girl on the beach demo was about 12 sq. feet - 36X48 inches, so the math is it is about 4-5 20X20 inch ones...

However I did refined my technique and that is what I teach in class - fresco helps you to cut all redundancies and insertanties in painting that "paint over mediums" are often trapping us into, since it is so "easy" - make a wrong stroke - not a biggie, just paint it over... so this is why we end up painting one painting for weeks and more....

anyway the old masters giornatas were proportionate to how much they could paint in one day - about 12 square feet - 1 hour per foot... It takes double that time to paint a 1 sq. foot tile simply because you have to let the paint/water "sit" so you do not overwet and wash away the layers you put on already.

buy this book, it has diagram of Sistine Chapels giornatas, the largest one, i believe is over 80 sq feet...

http://truefresco.org/bookshop/4_1000_0810938405_The-Sistine-Chapel-A-Glorious-Restoration.html

PS. You board looks impressive, I assume it is very light?

The panel weighs a little over a pound, maybe 20 oz. I don't know how big I can make them and still keep the thinness and light weight;...possibly 16X16. Anything larger and they might break when you try to pick them up. 14X14 is a safe size, as you can see by the image.
I haven't painted a pure fresco yet. I've done perhaps 15 panel-paintings since I began the process four years ago, some of which failed due to poor plastering. I have a little more knowledge now, but still I struggle with the concept of painting fresh with many layers, and especially with waiting between 'washes', so all the other "paint-over" mediums are a hard habit to break. I'm excited about receiving the Florentine lime putty from your FrescoShop soon, being determined to do a true fresco with real aged putty from Italy.
I still don't understand how to use white tints using lime putty or even bianco sangiovani. Lime white changes the colors after a few days, and bianco sangiovani doesn't 'calcinate' completely, but leaves a little white powder after drying. I have good bianco sangiovani from Zecchi's, so the quality isn't the problem. I want to be able to use some whitened tints, and not just paint transparently, like watercolor. Michelangelo's paintings have a lot of beautiful rich tints with white in them. It's one of the last barriers in fresco for me, along with my ignorance of good plastering technique and mortar understanding.

>sangiovani. Lime white changes the colors after
>a few days, and bianco sangiovani doesn't
>'calcinate' completely, but leaves a little
>white powder after drying.

let me know what did you do exactly to end up with this result - this thing happens with all pigments if they are applied after the plaster locks (run out of painting time)... Also at the beginning it is better to use pure lime putty for white, since it is more active the refined bianco san giovany, after all it is the same thing, but "bianco is more of a chalk" due to the process of prep

I want to be able to use some
>whitened tints, and not just paint
>transparently, like watercolor.

You do it at the end of the day, and you have to ajust for "whitening when dry", always since the plaster itself changes to prure white and shifts all colors lighter - this is a spesifics of fresco - you need to paint 2-3 shades darker then you want the final result to be.

The one will paint in "watercolor like" just because it is faster then using tempera-like (mixed with white) tones also in fresco you are "building up" the pigment layer - not applying paint coats (paint over medium)...

in short you need to build the color before you can put white on top and work out the lighter value, it does not make much sense to put white ontop of already white plaster, does it?

this is very important to define, at the end of the day plaster fills up and you work-refine the primary plain with the use of white.

I think that I've been trying to paint with bold lines and colors too quickly in fresco, causing me to start using 'white' too soon to blend form. And any pigment with red in it ends up becoming too harsh in a few days, whether it's a sienna color or red earth or cadmiums etc. What looks like a good reddish stroke or proper shading ends up appearing too brash and hard when the painting starts to 'dry.' And if I've used any lime-white tints, those fade , like you say, leaving the surrounding pure color area like an island of color, out-of-whack with the white-blended parts.
You say to use lime-white putty "in the beginning" and also " at the end of the day" ? I'm not sure I understand.
I've tried every combination of white: lime putty by itself...putty and bianco sangiovani...putty and titanium white mixed...titanium white alone...putty and fine marble dust.... But still can't control the final appearance. Plain lime-putty sticks the best and I wish I could figure out how to just use that, and no other whitening agent. It just feels like pure fresco when only lime-putty is used.
I received the FrescoShop bucket of lime putty today, and am going to do some small test swatches with it using different grades of sand and proportions. Why do you use less sand for the intonaco layer ( 5:8 lime/sand ) than for the undercoats which are 1:2 ? For smoother surface or better adhesion?

> I think that I've been trying to paint with
>bold lines and colors too quickly in fresco,

> You say to use lime-white putty "in the
>beginning"

of your "carier as fresco painter"

and also " at the end of the day" ?

white is the last thing that goes on:
at the end of verdaccio (underpainting)
at the end of painting day (accents and value lightening)

>feels like pure fresco when only lime-putty is
>used.

thats what i use

> I received the FrescoShop bucket of lime
>putty today, and am going to do some small test
>swatches with it using different grades of sand
>and proportions. Why do you use less sand for
>the intonaco layer ( 5:8 lime/sand ) than for
>the undercoats which are 1:2 ? For smoother
>surface or better adhesion?

it is just easier to put on thin - little bit "fatter"
do not make a special mix for that, just ad some lime to your mix right before applying.

Hmmm...use lime white "at the end of the underpainting (verdaccio)." And then don't use it again until the painting day is almost over? So you build up the main forms at first, using verdaccio and lime white, like a monochrome picture? Then start applying the many layers of colors for the full value painting? Then finally use some lime-white tints and accents to finish?
It's starting to sink in,...I think. In any case, I'm going to try painting something soon , using the Florentine putty. But instead of mixing the whole bucket of putty with sand, I think I should save about half of it, in case I want a different mixture. Plus, an amount set aside just for lime-white.
Your advice is a great help Ilia, thanks. We'll see if I can follow it all the way through.