Lime washAir lime (CL)
Eau-forte
Lime at its most diluted — a coloured water that patinates without covering, leaving the stone or the render legible through it.
A very thin white wash over rubble, Isle of Skye: every stone still reads through the coat.
Photo Richard Dorrell · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
At a glance
- Water
- Keep it dry
- Outside
- Exposed
- Floor
- Walls only
- Upkeep
- Regular care
- Vapour
- Vapour-open
What it is made of
1 volume of air lime to 6–10 volumes of water, pigments, sometimes a little alum as a fixative.
Application
The support
A porous mineral ground: stone, lime render or old limewash. Dust it, then dampen the wall the day before and again just before — on a dry ground the wash is drunk before it can set.
Tools
Large limewash brush or flat brush, bucket, natural sponge for effects.
Steps
- 1Mix the lime and pigments into plenty of water (1 to 6–10) and keep stirring — it settles constantly.
- 2Apply in very thin, crossed coats, working small areas without lap marks.
- 3Let each coat dry: the colour only reads once dry, and builds over two to four passes.
Drying
A few hours between coats; the lime then carbonates for weeks and the colour lightens as it does.
The trade’s general sequence, at about 20 °C. Where a producer publishes its own data sheet, that sheet wins.
Price
No producer in this catalogue sells this finish with a published price yet. It is described here for what it is; the catalogue will list it once a producer publishes one.
Upkeep
It chalks under a finger and is revived by another pass — there is no cleaning it, it is a patina you renew.
- Demands · Regular care
- Vapour-open