Friday, April 1, 2016

Creating a Classic Italian Fresco Fiasco


As I mentioned in a previous Tuscan Villa post, it was necessary to give up many "elements" that I wanted to include in the villa construction. Among other things, I planned a fresco on the back wall of the dining room. Fortunately, the dining room had to have a back wall; I didn't need to sacrifice that! And since the wall was there anyway, I could go ahead with my fresco plan. Well, it wasn't actually a plan. I don't really draw, and I definitely don't paint (in the artistic sense.) All I had was a vague idea of gluing a "classic" Italian something-or-other on the wall so that it would appear to have been painted on fresh, moist plaster using water-based pigments. 




I started with that Exciting Unknown - a "blank canvas," which is actually the back wall of the villa dining room.



I applied the base color of a pale peach mixture...



...and added four washes in various color mixes, drying between each color application.



I found this image of a fruit basket fresco that I thought would be perfect for the villa wall.  



I cut out the basket, which took a long time, and began gluing it onto the wall. It looked ridiculous. Or maybe not ridiculous, but what it looked like was a cut-out fruit basket glued onto a wall.



So I scraped it off.



I printed another image and kept the background intact, tearing it carefully by hand so that the edges weren't well defined. I hoped that I could blend the background of the print into the wall by applying paint with a dry brush. I glued the print onto the wall. But somehow I misread my center guide mark and the print was glued on off-center.



So I scraped it off.



I glued it on again but decided that the whole image was too small for the wall.



I increased the size of the image, tore the edges carefully and glued the second print over the first. I dry-brushed some paint around the edges, but it didn't exactly blend into the wall. It still looked like a cut-out, glued-on fruit basket.



So I scraped it off.



I re-stuccoed and re-sanded the wall...



...and re-painted with all five color mixes.



I was going to have to do this thing the hard way. I was going to have to paint something myself. I chose a grapevine, since I already had a grapevine motif on the living room fireplace. But I wasn't quite sure how to draw the stems and leaves, so I found lots of descriptive sketches. I needed to practice making a sketch before I began the real thing.



And I hate to tell you that for some reason that I cannot remember, although I'm sure that I had a reason, I drew the practice sketch on the back side of the dining room wall. When I was ready to make the real drawing on the wall, my practice sketch was out of sight on the other side! I didn't HAVE to see the sketch, but I had planned the grapevine's placement on the wall carefully, and I really wanted to be able to refer back to it. Then Modern Technology came to the rescue!



I photographed the sketch with my iPad and had an instant sketch for reference. I used a light brown colored pencil to recreate the sketch. I somehow also poked a sort of hole in the wall. I repaired it with a dab of joint compound and covered it later with the grapevine paint.



I thought there weren't enough leaves in my first sketch, so I added more. Then I thought that there were too many. But I was NOT going to try to paint them out. The leaves stayed.



My color palette included various shades of purple for the grapes and what I thought was a mixture of grayish greens for the leaves.



But the leaves looked aqua instead! (Actually not quite as aqua as they look in these photos - but still aqua.) I added more gray to the color mixture, and the leaves turned even more aqua. There's obviously something mysterious about mixing colors that I don't understand.



When I added a Golden Tan color wash to the aqua leaves, they turned green! The mystery deepens.



I was feeling some satisfaction with my grapevine until I realized that the grape clusters seemed disproportionately smaller than the (many) leaves.



So I enlarged the clusters of grapes and sanded the grapevine lightly to "age" it. 

And the Fresco is Finished!





 After all that effort, I need a change of pace. I think I'll go outside and help Wilbur stare at the daffodils. April has arrived in all its budding beauty; I hope that it's a beautiful and productive month for you all.    HAPPY SPRING!


13 comments:

  1. Hi Marjorie! I think you have done a Fantastic job!!! All the better because you persevered in spite of so many setbacks! I think your grape vine is wonderful and appropriate for the house!
    I can help you a little with the color mystery.... to begin with the ground you were painting on is orange-ish so many of the green-ish gray colors you thought you knew the color of when they were on white ground, showed more of the blue side of green because blue is opposite to orange in the color spectrum and the yellow side of the green would tend to disappear against the orange because it is such a close color. Most of those craft paints are already a combination of pigments pre-mixed and often it is hard to know what pigments you are mixing when you combine those colors. But often the gray colors have a lot of blue in them, so adding gray just made your "green" look even "more blue"! When you added a golden tan wash... it probably had a lot of yellow ocher paint in it... and yellow and blue produce green! I hope this makes a little bit of sense for you! The difficulty mixing those premixed colors is why I only use the straight from the tubes colors and mix them myself! Any way, I think you did a fantastic job and BRAVO for persevering!!!

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    1. Hello, Betsy. You won't believe how relieved I felt when I read your comment on my grapevine fresco. I had so much trouble mixing colors that I thought I was going a bit batty.The colors that I was creating just made no sense! I've done quite a lot of wall painting and stenciling, but hardly any "artistic" painting, where I need to try to change an existing color. Your very patient and expert explanation made complete sense! Thank you for taking the time to be my "color mentor." I'm definitely inspired to learn more about paint and color mixing!
      Marjorie

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  2. Ahhhh Marjorie! I think that this Fresco is Fabulous but what an amusing Tale it has had to tell! I enjoyed this post SO MUCH! It is so typical of what can happen when we try to take the path of least resistance and then have to backtrack and do what we needed to do in the first place! YOur fresco now LOOKS like a fresco and so PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK!!! :D I think that your grapevine is Far more INTERESTING than that fruit basket. I love the way that it drapes and the colors are softly muted so that it looks like it has been on the wall for decades!
    Beautiful work and may I say, that you can most certainly Draw! Very Well Done! :D

    elizabeth

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  3. Thanks, Elizabeth - I always love your unique views on my efforts! Your comments are truly inspirational and motivational. I actually had a lot of fun with that fresco, even though it was SO frustrating as well. And I have to share this story with you; I think you'll appreciate it: After all the set backs that I suffered with that fresco, and my feelings of complete ineptitude because I WANT to be an artist and am not, I was still fairly satisfied with my grapevine fresco. Well - we had dinner guests a couple of nights ago, and one of the party wanted to see what progress I'd made on the villa. I took her down to my workroom and showed her the fresco. "Oh, I like that!" she exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Is it wisteria?" So much for that fleeting feeling of satisfaction!
    Marjorie

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  4. Marjorie, this fresco is fantastic, you have done beautiful design,
    I like it very much!
    Happy Spring :-)
    Magda

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    1. Hi, Magda - Thank you for your nice comment; I'm glad that you like the fresco. It was a struggle (as is most of what I do, it seems) but I'm glad that I could finish it at last!
      Marjorie

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  5. I love your fresco it is beautiful. Lol I admire your perseverance I would have given up I hate to admit but I am so glad you didn't as you have created a masterpiece.
    Hugs Maria

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    1. Hi, Maria - and thank you for your nice remarks! I admit that I was tempted to give up a few times - why not just hang a painting or a tapestry on that wall - but it was a challenge that I couldn't resist. I appreciate your encouraging compliment!
      Marjorie

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  6. Hello Marjorie,
    It might have been quite an adventure with a few bumps along the road, but the final effect is perfection! I actually think your grapevine looks better then the basket. It really does remind me of frescos I've seen in Italy. Terrific work and worth every minute you spent on it and the final colors are just right.
    Big hug
    Giac

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    1. Hello Giac - Yes, there were definitely a few bumps, but for the most part they were funny bumps that kept me laughing at myself. Mostly. Or maybe it's only funny in retrospect, since I was mostly satisfied with the finished fresco and could put the frustration out of memory! Thanks for your lovely comments.

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  7. Whaow Marjorie - what a lot of work! But your perseverance has paid off and the end result is wonderful. I think it is much prettier and more atmospheric than the fruit basket - and it is your own work. Glad you adjusted the colours of those leaves. Beautiful.
    Mini hug
    Carol

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    1. Hi, Carol - I appreciate your nice comments. After the fresco was all done, I was glad that I had decided to draw it myself. That blue leaf color was unexpected - definitely needed much work! Thanks for stopping by.
      Marjorie

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  8. Whaow Marjorie - what a lot of work! But your perseverance has paid off and the end result is wonderful. I think it is much prettier and more atmospheric than the fruit basket - and it is your own work. Glad you adjusted the colours of those leaves. Beautiful.
    Mini hug
    Carol

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I'd love to hear your comments!