On one of the days that we had class with Marc and Barbara, we did something quite different than the norm. Instead of walking around to go see beautiful art in a museum, or go visit beautiful churches, we went to school for a lesson on Fresco.  This was a pretty exciting class :) ! A dear friend of Marc's, named Maurizio (I apologize for miss-spelling), taught us all about the Affresco (Fresco) Process.  It was very interesting to see how Renaissance painting was done compared to how artists paint today. Being an artist, myself, I can honestly say there's quite a difference in the steps, as well as some differences with the materials in painting Fresco. 

Some were a bit hesitant at first, but all of us ended up taking turns giving each step in Fresco a shot. We were first showed how to mix the ingredients that form Fresco. From there, we all took turns mixing the ingredients. The materials that needed to be mixed consisted of Calce (Slaked (aged) Lime), and Sabbia (Sand), which is fresh Lake or River sand, that in order to maintain the color, it must contain no salt (Sale). 






For the surface preparation, Rinzaffo, a very thin liquid layer is used on a bare stone or brick wall to prepare for the Arricio. Arricio also referred to as a floating coat, is the first layer. Intonaco Plaster is the final layer to paint on. It is added to the specific parts of the work that will be painted on. 

Maurizio showed us all how to carefully check that the surface was good for us to start creating art on.

We were then shown that we don't draw our idea directly onto the surface. Instead, we have an outline of our image that we're planning to create on a thin, separate sheet. 

                                                                                 The outline of our image looked like before painting

From there, we proceed lightly to get the outline of the image on the Fresco. Once, the outline is on the Fresco, you can start to paint your design. We all took turns painting different sections of the piece. 

                                            Barbara painting!








The painting process. Sorry I cut you off Molly :/ !

This was a wonderful experience! I really enjoyed getting to see the differences between painting then and painting now. It's a very different texture, compared to just having my own paper lying around, or buying my own paper and being able to create my design immediately. The paint texture is quite different as well. It's a powdery-base, compared to the tubes of liquid paint that I am used to. I also found it interesting that you have approximately 7 hours before the Fresco completely dries. Meaning, you should have a pretty solid idea on what your idea is for your piece, before beginning. 
 Unfortunately, James and I weren't able to see the completion of this process, because we had to do our usual game of finding where our class was from our current location, grabbing lunch, and making it to class on time. However, we did see images of the finished piece and the lady, whom Hannah named, came out lovely :)!!!