08_My fresco

I plastered a fresco tile at the Sculpture Resource Center, and then drove it over to The Drawing Studio to paint on. This was during a life drawing session, on 12 September, 2009. My goal was to make the fresco tiles portable, and this experiment proved that I could plaster in one place, and paint somewhere else. The key might be keeping the tile wet inside what is essentially a Tupperware box, the Masterson Palette Seal.

Final fresco. I don't always draw what I see:


Soaked the Hardibacker tile for 15 minutes in distilled water:


Bubbles while soaking:


One scoop of sand:


One scoop of fresco lime:


Ready to mix with putty knife:


Mix started:

Mix thoroughly:

Waited for the surface water to evaporate:


Tile no longer glistened:


Mix stiff, but could be drier:


Put fresco plaster on tile:


Troweled tile. Did not treat edges, and this became a problem later on:


Ugly wet tile:


Tile glistened when I put it in the Masterson Palette Seal box:


Airtight plastic box:


Drove to downtown Tucson, had some extra time, grabbed a tea at Shot in the Dark Cafe:


Went to The Drawing Studio in downtown Tucson:


Set up. Tile matte dr iedbefore the model showed up. I probably have about 5 hours to paint:


Started drawing in Mayan Blue:


During the model breaks I covered the tile to keep it wet:


Used Mayacrom pigments:


Getting wilder:


Filling up the space:


Tile still wet enough to paint when model finished. However the edges were rough and crumbling, threatening to eat into the rest of the fresco:


Put fresco in busboy tub, covered with lid, to slow down drying, hoping to retard cracking: