There are wonderful names to some pigments like “caput mortum”or “Hercalonao”, colors that were used in Pompeii and ancient Roman times. I fell in love with fresco first in Italy where the large fresco cycles that had beautiful colors and textures. The art of fresco is fascinating for if you do a large piece, you must join the daily parts the giornata and match levels and colors. It seemed unlikely that I would be able to do my own fresco. But with two classes, I was able to pick up the essentials and now the most challanging part is deceiding what I will paint.
The thing that I like to do is use the white of the plaster as my white. There is a white pigment, but it better used to mix with others and not alone. This is similiar to watercolor.