Application of Venetian Plaster: How to Apply Venetian Plaster

The magical journey of Venetian plaster began in Rome and Greece, during the time of the Caesars, about thousands of years back. Andrea Palladio, an Italian architect crafted this eternal art in the 15th century Venice, Italy. Within a century, this elegant form of plaster had spread on all walls of Venice. Venetian plaster is famous for its superb finishing technique on the walls. It is made of various elements, mainly marble and aged lime, along with acrylic colors, natural pigment binders and synthetic polymers. These ingredients make the plaster, evergreen. The ideal location for this plaster form is actually in the kitchen, dining halls, exterior walls, bathrooms and other such places.

Venetian plaster is strikingly smooth to touch and the secret of this smoothness is in its application. The pre-mixed plaster is easily available in any hardware store and this saves you the trouble of mixing the right materials to get the best Stucco mix. To be a master in the art of the application of Venetian plaster, one must take a tiny step at a time. At first you should try its application on any small piece of wall or a practice board, this will help you to enhance your skills and understand the types of burnish and even the luster of the plaster. This experimentation will allow you to choose the perfect color combination that you want for your walls.

It doesn't really need an artist to apply Venetian plaster, what it really needs is to understand the right technique of it. Let's learn how to apply this beautiful Italian miracle, the easy way, to get yourself the perfect wall art.

Preparation
A drywall preparation is a must. First clean the wall with a 100 or 400-grit sandpaper, by removing the excess dust, remnants of oil, colors, wallpapers, grease or any form of moisture. Then give a light coat of a good, water-based drywall primer. It is important to maintain equal surface tension throughout the wall. This makes the application of the Venetian stucco, exceptionally easy. Now that you are done with the basic drywall preparation, the most important thing to do is to collect all the application tools for it. First and foremost, the thing that you will need is a flexible trowel and an application spatula. You must mix the plaster with a mixing rod, thoroughly.

First Coat

• Put the Venetian plaster on the right hand side of the trowel.
• Unlike Marmorino, some Venetian plaster types may require a roller or a liquid brush for the first coat itself.
• Make random but swift strokes.
• Apply a thin and uniform basic coat all over the wall.
• Most importantly, use only one side of the trowel at a time, this will avoid the drying of the paste.
• Let the base coat dry completely, before you apply the second coat.
• It may take 5 to 12 hours for the surface to dry out completely.

Second Coat

• Use 100-grit sandpaper to remove any excessive dried plaster.
• Now starting from any one corner of the room, repeat the application procedure.
• Use steady and long overlapping strokes, holding the trowel in a 60⁰-90⁰ angle.
• Apply a thin coat and avoid scratches.
• The second coat requires a clean trowel so use warm water to clean it.
• Make sure that all the missing parts and voids, are covered in this second layer.
• Let this coat dry off for a day or as per the instructions on the mixture label.

Topcoat

• Once the second coat is dry, do a faint sanding, with circular motions of the 600-grit sandpaper.
• Before the final step of burnishing, scrap off all the plaster dust from the surface.
• Use a small trowel to give a more fussy look and larger plastering knives for less amounts of the encaustic pattern.
• Start working on the 3 to 4 square foot surface areas.
• Connect to each of these segmented patches in your desired direction, like moving in either anti-clockwise or clockwise directions, top right-top left or vise versa.

Burnishing
Once you are done with the topcoat, you can skip this last step if you wish to. But we don't mind a more royal kind of wall decoration. Do we? All you need is a fixed pattern in your head, a stainless steel trowel or spatula, a steel blade, 600-grit sandpaper and a cotton or cheesecloth rag.

• For the encaustic patterns, put the trowel gently on the desired surface and quickly remove it.
• This will give the cross-hatching effect.
• To give the final effects, skip the trowel at about a 10⁰ angle.
• Use a steel float or a rounded trowel by making continuous method.
• Move the trowel in a 'S' motion for the large encaustic patterns.
• When the wall is completely dry, sand the surface lightly.
• This will help you to blend the plaster layers and helps the underlying layers to come on the surface.
• Wipe the surface with the cotton rag and then to give additional luster by polishing the surface with the blade, in a horizontal direction.

Remember to dry off the surface completely before you begin the actual burnishing process. Venetian plaster takes good shape even in the two basic coats, and there is no limit as such to how many coats one should apply. The more plaster coats you will apply, the more durable will the Venetian plaster get. The topcoats are essential in moist regions, on the exterior walls and on the bathroom and kitchen walls as well. To make the wall panels more glossy and shiny, and to protect it from the moisture, apply some wax for plaster. The wax for plaster must only be applied when the Venetian plaster has settled on the wall surface for a week or two.

Now that you know how to apply Venetian plaster, what are you waiting for? Go and paint the world in this charismatic type of plaster.