(Workshop member Jim Martin checks in...)
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Merry Christmas everyone, and best wishes for a healthy,
happy and productive New Year.
It’s been a while since my last report. Unlike my prolific blogging and modelling pal
Trevor Marshall, I’m afraid I work only in seasonal spurts of energy. However, a quiet Christmas season this year is
affording me the opportunity to move ahead once more on my home layout.
I have returned to work on the other end of the layout, the
Simcoe staging area. Track work is well
along, but before proceeding any further I wanted to get to work on painting
the backdrop.
In this location I want
the skies to look colder and more threatening. I’ve been inspired by the cloudy backdrop paintings on Troels Kirk’s
Coast Line RR On30 layout in Sweden. However,
Troels is a professional artist - and I most assuredly am not. Nevertheless, with a photo album of cloudy
skies on my tablet, I set out to make the heavens angry.
After a number of hours of noodling around with dollar store
acrylic paints, I came up with what you see here:
To my way of thinking it wasn’t totally
awful... but then I set the buildings back in place:
First, I noticed how the distinct cloud patterns betrayed the
presence of the large mirror at the end of the layout, thus shattering the
illusion I wanted to create with the reflected structures.
Second, my wife Cheryl confirmed what I already feared. “Shouldn’t I be looking at the layout first?”
she asked. That was it. Out came the broad brushes wielded in long,
horizontal strokes:
In this photo, the scene is way more pleasing to my eye, yet still
holds the threat of rain. I still have
to do a line of autumn trees behind the buildings. Then I’ll decide whether or not that low
cloudbank stays.
The forecast: Clearing
skies but changeable conditions for the foreseeable future.
