Priming, priming, priming. . . Gotta keep on priming. . .

Here's a shot of some of my supplies. The three cans of primer are just out of sight to the left of the photograph. The three cans you see are the "Flax" light golden yellow. I e-mailed a copy of this photo to good ol' Mom and entitled it "My Blue Period". One way or another, my life is approximating Picasso's right now! ;-)

After almost six hours of work, with a short lunch break, I have managed to apply a coat of white universal primer to all four walls of the future nursery. No photos of that, but I thought I'd post a couple of what the room used to look like before I got started today. A previous occupant of the room painted all four walls this mid-blue color.

As much as I liked applying a similar shade of blue to the facings of the recently finished 80-figure unit of fusiliers, it just doesn't work as an interior color. At least not when it covers all four walls. So, a primer was necessary to ensure good coverage when I apply the flaxen yellow tomorrow. Hopefully that job will go fairly quickly. What took lots of time today was trimming in the primer with a brush around all of the woodwork and along the baseboards and ceiling. I did the hard part first, and then applied everything else with a roller, which I think was all finished inside of two hours. Whew! It's time to put up my feet!!!

And the title of this picture is -- "Ladder awaits". You get a good sense of how dark this room was although sunshine comes through these southward facing windows for a good part of the day. It should be quite different once I have the flaxen yellow applied. Photos of the finished work to follow.

Comments

marinergrim said…

I like those tall windows. Somehow american houses always seem better designed than this side of the pond. Watching home improvement shows from the US makes me envious of the space, light and design that you take for granted - that ands the abundant use of wood.

2:02 PM

Anonymous said…

Oh, rather you than me Stokes. I hate decorating, and usually leave all that to my cousin, who does it for a living...brrr! Even the thought of it makes my blood run cold.

Steve.

7:30 AM

old-tidders said…

"Flax" light golden yellow - sounds like a nice colour; that dark blue will take some covering

happy painting

-- Allan

12:46 PM

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings. Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat. The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week. Next up, the neck stocks. I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit. Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step. "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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