First fresco studies

I have began a mural painting course last year, specifically fresco painting, and this year we have started with the actual painting practice, putting the lime plaster layers and painting. Each student has a 1m2 wall on which to practice, and for now we've been focusing on copying other paintings to get the hand of the technique, which I found is surprisingly intuitive and easy to work with. These are 2 of the studies I did, one after michelangelo and the other after verrochio.

Process of # 8

These are some pictures of the process. There's a copy of the first color printed on paper, the matrix inked and ready for printing with the second color, the same matrix inked black for a comparative test with the xerox drawing and the cleaned matrix. Despite being it my first time with a colored woodcut, I didn't have much trouble with it. Making the register with a needle is much easier on a wood surface than on a lithographic stone. But I did notice the same problem I had with lithography, printing on highly absorbent cotton papers. They tend to inflate and thus ruin the registry. The japanese rice paper however kept the same size all through the process making it easier to match the colors correctly. The only frustration was finding the right color that I wanted for each one. It took a lot of time and I still just couldn't find the right hue for the yellow and the mid-tone. Mixing colors isn't easy.

Finished version to follow.