The workshop, called Karmacolor, specializes in arts and crafts for children and basic furniture repairs – not professional restoration, according to the town's mayor Koldo Leoz.
However, the parish priest said the church only intended for the arts and crafts teacher to clean the sculpture and did not ask for a full renovation, according to the BBC. Since the attempted restoration, which started about a month ago, the once-faded St. George sculpture now bears a pink face with brightly colored red and gray armor.
"The parish decided on its own to take action to restore the statue and gave the job to a local handicrafts teacher. The council wasn't told and neither was the regional government of Navarre," said Koldo Leoz, mayor of Estella, according to the Guardian.
"It's not been the kind of restoration that it should have been for this 16th-century statue. They've used plaster and the wrong kind of paint and it's possible that the original layers of paint have been lost," Leoz continued, adding, "this is an expert job it should have been done by experts."
Spain's art conservation association (ACRE) also decried the failed restoration attempt, saying "we cannot tolerate more attacks on our cultural heritage."
"It shows a frightening lack of training of the kind required for this sort of job," ACRE said in a statement.