A Creative Italian Plaster Finish

While perusing pics from my trip to Italy in 2005, I found images of a finish I stumbled upon in one of the hotels. Wish I could tell you which hotel or even which city but I neglected to note that. However, I think it is an interesting technique and one that looks easily achievable with tinted plasters, a grate with a pleasing pattern and a trowel to mess some of it up while still wet. It looks as if they applied, troweled or rubbed some sort of metallic wax or overglaze over some of the finishes when done.

The finish was applied around the room entrances and elevators. Below, you will see Reds & Golds in one area and Blues in another. Isn’t the blue color movement just so visually pleasing? All my closeup shots of the blue are fuzzy. Argh!

Here’s the closeup of the Red & Gold, though…

This one is in ochre tones — there’s a closer look.

The Red & Gold combination continues but here it is paired with beautiful greens.

I love the “messiness” of the finish and the goal of it being not so perfect either.

The artisans in Italy always think in such exciting colors! I really enjoyed the results. What do you think?