033 The Augusta Railway - Clouds in the Sky

I screwed up my courage and proceeded to the basement.  Weary of trying to avoid messing up my backdrop with ugly clouds, I decided tonight was the night to be a man, grab a brush and paint...a cloud.

First, I'll need to remove the framework.  On each section I will remove the clamps and set the benchwork aside.

For inspiration I hung up the fairly good cloud test board and said "I will do better!"  The laughter coming from upstairs pounded in my head.

Section 3 is very light and was removed quickly.

Section 2 is very long and had a lot of clamps, but it was removed in minuted.

Section 1 is short and wide, and slid out of its corner without issue.

Here is a shot of all the sections together.  Very simple stuff!

Section 1 appears to be not at a right angle in this shot for some reason, but it is.

When you have a lot of sections, it is wise to identify them and to more the tops/backs/sides with a Sharpee.

Section 2 is long and narrow, only 31".  Just right for my arm length!

Finally, the blob, Section 3.

I've never seen this done, but it made good sense to me to do it.  Wife is STILL laughing.  I cut out miscellaneous cloud shapes and stuck them on the backdrop.  This gave me a sense of what I wanted to accomplish and where they should be.  With a copy of the plan in hand, I moved them around making a mental note that the closer I got to the base of the sky, the smaller the clouds would become.

Having seen some triple/quadruple clouds in blown tight formation, I thought I would try it.

A few big clouds at the left side would serve as an eye stop for those looking around the layout, and prevent their eye from wandering into the hall.

I stopped by the Hobby Lobby with my 40% discount certificate and bought the largest round tipped brush I could find.  Wetting it with water, filling up the jar and grabbing a towel, I'm ready to paint.  Wish me luck!

I dampened the brush slightly, put some acrylic white on an old plastic bowl lid (little pallets don't work well with a big brush) and went to work.

Here you can see the first coat.  Wow!  It really looks better than I thought it would!  I'm excited!

The three wind blown clouds are causing me large amounts of grief and may get repainted.

In the corner, still swept by the wind and lighted by the sun over in the right...they gracefully move across the sky.

I gotta get the valence up next.  The lights are killing my eyes!

After the second coat the clouds become more full in the middle, more wispy on the ends.

A few more tiny clouds appear toward the bottom.

Cloud close up #1

Cloud close up #2

Cloud close up #3

Ok, I HATE these.  Will have to fix them tomorrow somehow.

All in all it went VERY well.  Here are some things I learned:

1.  Only use white bristle brushes.  I spent a lot of time with a pair of fine tweezers picking out brown bristles.  When you scrub properly, you tear up the brush.  That is to be expected.
2.  Don't over wet the brush, just get it slightly damp.  If too wet, it smears the paint instead of feathering it out.
3.  Tell everyone in the house to leave you alone.  You can't be interrupted   Paint anyone that laughs at you in the face.  Hard.
4.  Use the big brush to build up the large cloud, but switch to the smaller brush when filling in and detailing

TRY THIS!  It is not hard and the result are amazing.