The Church of Mission San Miguel is known for its beautiful fresco wall paintings and decorations that were created and painted by Indian artisans under the direction of the Monterey artist Esteban Munras. Fresco is watercolor painting on plaster, ususally wet plaster. Mission San Miguel's fresco paintings are properly called secco style, which means that the designs are painted on the plaster after the plaster has dried.

In the living room there is this display of colored minerals, and how they were ground and mixed with cactus juice to paint the walls of the church. The technology may have been very simple, but it was effective. Almost 200 years later, the fresco paintings in the old church are still very beautiful and in good repair.

Do you see the window above my shoulder? Since all of the building materials of the Mission had to obtained locally, the window "panes" are not made of glass, but of oiled parchment. Parchment is made from lamb or goat skin, both of which were in abundance at the Mission.

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