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| Time to get down to the actual application of paint now I think. |
Finally managed to finish applying the gray basecoat to the first squadron of 14 Austrian hussars and Ndasdy there at the back corner, who seems to be looking for his errant trumpeter. That took longer than usual, despite use of a #10 round brush, thanks to all of the nooks and crannies on these figures.
Although I have attempted use of spray primers in the distant past, good coverage always seemed to be an issue, so I have continued for most of my 40+ years behind the brush to tackle the important basecoating step with that most useful of tools. . . a paintbrush. As usual, my preferred basecoat is an inexact mix of white acrylic gesso and acrylic craft paint, 'Quaker Gray' by Cermacoat.
But I finally wised up a little bit.
The bottle of the latter was, after many years of use, about a third full. It dawned on me that I could simplify things a bit and also ensure consistency by squeezing a good amount of gesso from its rather large bottle into the remaining third of the gray, give it a through shake, and voilà! Ready made basecoat with good coverage in a nice light gray without waste, or the inexact science of mixing the two on a piece of palette paper each time I sit down at the painting table. Should also leave me enough to get through the remaining three hussar squadrons as and when I get to basecoating those.
But for now, time to start applying actual paint. And as usual, I'll start with fleshtone before moving onto the horses and dark red undercoat on saddle cloths, breeches, dolmans, pelisses, and busby bags during the next several days. That is when I'm not outside mowing or playing other lawn games, which have some added challenges this summer. . .
Verizon suddenly flagged many front yards in our neighborhood in mid-May, with no communication beforehand, and is in the process of digging holes -- some on the rather large side -- throughout the area with heavy equipment and a crew of workmen that does not always seem to know what it's doing if we're brutally honest.
Gotta love public utilities.
Ostensibly, the purpose of the work, we finally learned from our retired chemist neighbor, is to feed fiber internet cables through underground conduits to improve internet service for Verizon customers. Of course, we are not Verizon customers, so none of this inconvenience, mess, and lack of communication or, apparently, timeline to completion of the work will have anything to do with our internet access or speed. Sigh.
Inexplicably, we have somehow managed to avoid having our front yard excavated thus far (or heavy equipment parked there), but the presence of many small flags marking other utility lines complicates mowing, and my usual May applications of organic fertilizer and organic materials (chicken feed anyone?) has been held up by about five weeks due to the uncertainty of everything. Grrrr.
On the positive side of things, the weather has been cool and comfortable the last few days, the summer solstice is approaching, and goodness knows there are many less pleasant things to worry about both here at home and abroad. The term 'ongoing dumpster fire' comes readily to mind, but that's a topic of conversation for another time and place.
The hussars provide a more rewarding thing on which to focus.
-- Stokes
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