One of those techniques is French gesso re-cutting, in which he uses tiny hook-shaped metal scrapers to carve details into as many as 30 coats of gesso, a thin plaster-like substance, which is built up coat by coat on the object to be gilded, and into which leaves and other ornaments can be carved.
It wasn't exactly Rogers and Hammerstein, but we sat there open-mouthed as she sang, giving it full show-tune flourish: "He told me he was on the phone to one of the guys/ So you can just imagine my surprise/ When I heard him saying through the thin plaster walls/ See you in an hour when I've washed my balls!" It was one of those Only in America moments.
(You can still see the ghost-outlines of figures where he lifted off the thin plaster sheets).
In general, technologies of enclosure structures erection (e.g. curtain wall systems with ventilated air gap, finished with thin plaster layers; sandwich masonry) widely used in the building industry are increasingly labor-intensive, time consuming, imply using mainly manual work which in the aggregate results in increased construction and investment return periods.
Among the nine residences will be a converted carriage house decorated with the owners' collection of art from Southeast Asia; an 1890's Renaissance Revival row house with original oak and cherry wood mantels and wainscoting; and an 1880's house where most of the surfaces have been finished in Venetian plaster, a thin layer of colored plaster.
The branches are coated with a thin skin of plaster or white paint so that, at first sight, they seem bleached of life, sapless and forlornly skeletal.
The paint is applied on a thin layer of plaster.
Throughout the ordeal of this undertaking the house was in constant upheaval, a mess, in other words, where a thin layer of plaster dust touched every surface - including my clothes.
F. candida (white springtail) were raised at room temperature in plastic containers with a thin layer of plaster mixed with charcoal.
If drilling up, through the ceiling, expect to pass through a thin coat of plaster and 5/8" of sheet rock and ⁄ inch (1.3 cm) of strapping to which the sheet rock is secured.
