Fresco Mural Painting

What is it?

It is the application of pigments dissolved in water on the wall, which has just been smoothed with lime mortar. Limestone mineralizes and fixes pigments on the surface of mortar. We, therefore, use the final coating of the wall , according to the millennial techniques of lime mortars .

Such a simple technique opens up immense possibilities and offers great visual qualities: color pigments, glazes and opacities, color saturation, the possibilities of play and dialogue with the pictorial matter, the complex work system, the protagonism of the spectator and the tension during pictorial action.

Fresco mural painting

Fresco painting corresponds to the last phase of the construction of the walls, it is the last step of the wall, a very ancient technique that is already documented in fresco mural painting in the books of the Roman architect Vitruvius.
 

I paint fresco murals because I have a real passion for this process: every day I prepare the day's work, I have the materials at hand: the lime and sand mortar, the pigments, the paintbrushes, the water, the sketches, the tools, the bastida.
 

On leaving the bastida, I sealed and smoothed the lime mortar on the fragment of the mur that I had planned to finish that day, traced the traces briefly and finally painted on it with the pigments dissolved in water in a direct, decisive and rapid manner when the mortar was still damp. The process of carbonation of the lime will fix the pigments, resulting in a matt, water-insoluble, resistant paint, with pure pigments, of great chromatic intensity, transparent and opaque, incomparable to any other process.
 

For fresco painting we use a range of pigments, very fine colouring materials, which must necessarily be compatible with lime. This kind of work requires a great physical and mental effort. I have to be able to feel each wall and each arch of the architectural space in order to give the paintings a symbolic content, an architectural function and to visually order the space according to the intentions required. Each project is as if a part were produced, unveiling paintings resulting from a long process of gestation, of creation in the silence and intimacy of my studio.
 

Fresco mural painting has an undeniable social dimension, which re-establishes the umbilical cord between artistic creation and the public, recovering the active protagonism of the spectator and the presence of painting in living architectural spaces. The moment the spectator sat down like his paintings is when cobra felt my feina.