3 ms·

I'll brag for a minute I created what I think is a novel painting technique that I have now made significant iterative improvement on over the last 4 or so yea

I'll brag for a minute I created what I think is a novel painting technique that I have now made significant iterative improvement on over the last 4 or so years. I now have a large portfolio of medium-large scale paintings using this technique. https://www.instagram.com/kemendoart/ https://www.instagram.com/kemendoart/ The technique is a variation of a "fresco" which is applying watercolor to fresh plaster. This is a very old method that tends to survive long periods because it is making a material/mineral change in the composite medium in a way that embeds pigments into plaster - making it durable to degradation in ways that other methods aren't. I take this further by blending the pigment into water and then adding lime plaster so that the plaster itself is pigmented, and then you work with the pigmented plaster much like you would work with oil on canvas. I make my own wooden frame "canvases" by hand and have had to deal with warping and cracking. The challenges are numerous and there's nobody to follow or ask for help or advice because as far as I'm aware nobody has developed a practice for this. In many cases I've had to make my own pigment (For example I ground up Kingsford Charcoal for black pigment on "Untitled 7" which gave it more of a concrete texture) The biggest challenge however is with pigments - not only are they hard to make and expensive to buy - but when mixing with lime plaster they get IMMEDIATELY washed out so that bright and bold colors are extremely hard to make. I am currently working on my latest piece and this thread made me upload my latest progress to show: https://www.instagram.com/p/CvptIU1urzD/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CvptIU1urzD/ In order to get the depth of pigment I want I am experimenting with soaking my unset plaster with tons of pigmented water. So far it's working! My next set of experiments is to figure out a new frame material that will not decompose faster than the plaster. My fear is that in a 100 years the wood will have degraded and that will cause the whole thing to fall apart, so I need to figure out how to get the plaster to adhere to stone somehow. [1] https://www.instagram.com/kemendoart/ https://www.instagram.com/kemendoart/

shimon 3y ago
Interesting technique. Are there some similarities to the Venetian Plaster technique? (Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfGbryICt0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfGbryICt0A)
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  The primary difference is that "Venetian plaster" process is specifically intended to mimic the look of marble or stone and so the method doesn't really veer too far outside of that for materials or process. These kind of artists seem to only use quartz or other "smooth" acrylic plasters and pigments that don't have the same structure and are generally thin and temporary (less than 20 years expected age) - so not limestone the same kind of lime aggregates like tadelakt which is what I use. I'm attempting to make something that can last 2000+ years - somewhere between an oil painting and a marble sculpture.
  - shimon 3y ago
    Thanks for elaborating - that sounds really cool.
    - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
      Thank you for asking! The art world is kinda funky.
      - peteradio 3y ago
        Very interesting idea. So if I understand it can take abuse, pieces could be ground right off and you would have a different texture but the color would remain, unlike basically anything else where it would revert to the base material color.
        AndrewKemendo 3y ago
        I’m not quite sure what you have in mind but it’s not really abusable, it just won’t deteriorate as quickly as other types of painting. If you cut into it then you may or may not get different colors depending on where you slice. In that sense it’s not much different mechanically than oils, just with way more depth. Thanks for asking!

shimon 3y ago

Interesting technique. Are there some similarities to the Venetian Plaster technique? (Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfGbryICt0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfGbryICt0A)

AndrewKemendo 3y ago
The primary difference is that "Venetian plaster" process is specifically intended to mimic the look of marble or stone and so the method doesn't really veer too far outside of that for materials or process. These kind of artists seem to only use quartz or other "smooth" acrylic plasters and pigments that don't have the same structure and are generally thin and temporary (less than 20 years expected age) - so not limestone the same kind of lime aggregates like tadelakt which is what I use. I'm attempting to make something that can last 2000+ years - somewhere between an oil painting and a marble sculpture.
- shimon 3y ago
  Thanks for elaborating - that sounds really cool.
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    Thank you for asking! The art world is kinda funky.
    - peteradio 3y ago
      Very interesting idea. So if I understand it can take abuse, pieces could be ground right off and you would have a different texture but the color would remain, unlike basically anything else where it would revert to the base material color.
      - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
        I’m not quite sure what you have in mind but it’s not really abusable, it just won’t deteriorate as quickly as other types of painting. If you cut into it then you may or may not get different colors depending on where you slice. In that sense it’s not much different mechanically than oils, just with way more depth. Thanks for asking!