Margot Stephens Original Fresco Artwork

Margot Stephens 

41cmx22cm 

Fresco: the process

Fresco painting is the art of applying earth pigments onto freshly laid lime
plaster.
The ground for the lime plaster is applied in layers. The first layer is my own
recipe of clay, sand, straw and lime. The second layer is sand and lime & the
third layer is lime and marble dust.
The lime/marble layer is applied only to the area that can be painted in one
day. The sketch for the painting is made on paper and perforated to allow
charcoal or oxide dust to pass through, leaving dotted outlines on the wet
lime/marble layer ready for painting. Pigments are applied to the lime putty
surface and are bound to the lime as the putty dries.
Traditionally fresco is applied to walls; limestone caves 10 000 years or more
ago, Egyptian pyramids and more recently... think Pompeii onward!
I have designed and made a frame that allows me to make paintings that can
hang anywhere that remains dry! Light will not fade a fresco but they don’t like
water.

Artist's Statement

Inspiration for my paintings comes from nature, birds and their natural
environment in particular. I enjoy the interconnection of living systems and how
stories and myths have evolved to explain natural behaviours. I’m inspired by
Irish stories of faeries/spirits in the landscape and Welsh mythologies.
Ancestral stories that explain natural behaviours of birds and animals through
folk tales.
My interweaving of imagination with observed environment allows a play of
line, colour and form that can loosely be described as biomorphic.