Rafael Cantero Domínguez – Estuco Metal Art

DESCRIPTION OF THE WORK

Rafael is a specialist in interior finishings made of Roman marmorino stucco. It is a technique which consists in the polishing of the lime mortar and marble powder, with the possibility of including pigmentation with oxides and earths. 

The process of applying this technique starts with the relevant preparatory layers and the adequacy of the supporting element. After the mortar is mixed, it is poured onto the vertical wall in several layers, allowing for the necessary drying time as required, until the last layer of plaster is polished with the trowel manually to close the pores, compact and finally burnish by carbonation, what is known as planchado en frío (manual cold pressing) . After that last step, a coating of bee’s and carnauba wax is applied as a protective layer and final finish. 

The variety of finishes that can be obtained by the use of this technique is rather vast: from the imitation of travertine marble, to ashlars or borders, as well as even creating the effect of pictorial glazing. 

Apart from the marmorino stucco, Rafael carries out other sorts of works related to lime or gypsum finishing such as for example the tadelakt, carried out with hydrated lime; or sgraffito, carried out with air lime-based mortars; as well as finishings made of lime mortars, mixed ones or others made of clay, applied with metal trowels, wooden grout floats and other types of trowels. Each one of these techniques requires of its own special tools. Thus, Rafael uses trowels and other different types of stones – especially polished for the tadelakt – and pointers, scrapers and special tools for sgraffito. 

Another technique he masters – in his case linked to furniture – is the marble-stucco – mixture of plasters, glues and pigments – in order to achieve a grain pattern which imitates natural stone.