Someone tells you to paint a picture. “All right,” you think. “No problem. I can fill the canvas pretty easily.” But what if the picture you are asked to paint is three stories high, two city blocks long, and one block wide? In other words, a total of 17,000 square feet (1,579 square meters)! Diego Rivera was one of modern Mexico’s most famous painters. When he was asked to paint this huge picture, he did not waver for a minute. In total, Rivera painted 124 frescos, which showed Mexican life, history, and social problems. A fresco is a painting on wet plaster. Special watercolors are used. Rivera had to plan ahead and sketch what he was going to paint. He used a special plaster. It had to have a certain amount of lime. Rivera’s aides would apply all but the final layer of plaster. Then they used sharp tools to dig the outlines of Rivera’s sketches into the plaster. Next, they made a mixture of lime and marble dust. This would be spread over the outline in a thin layer. As soon as this layer was firm—but not dry—Rivera would start to paint. Every morning, his paints had to be freshly mixed. The pigments had to be ground by hand and mixed on a slab of marble. Rivera would not start working until the paints were perfect. Rivera would paint as long as there was daylight. He could not paint under artificial light. It would change how the colors looked. Some days, he would say that what he had painted that day was not good enough. Then he would insist that all the plaster be scraped off so he could start again! It took Rivera years to finish, but this mural is thought to be one of the greatest in the world today. | 
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