Blue sky thinking... well brown sky

I finally found some time to get out to the garage today having bought 2 x sheets of hardboard and some ready mixed poster paint over the weekend.

Plan A was the new sky over 'The Big Hill' area. Tom suggested putting battens on the wall rather than attaching the hardboard to the layout and it was a stroke of genius... so I did.

In the second picture you can see where the new board is attached to the old backscene, there is a 6 inch bit of 2 x 1 glued to both to hold them in line. The clamps can come off tomorrow.

At the far end there isn't room behind the layout to fit battens in so I've just pinned the hardboard to the wall. There is a slight gap at the the corner but I'm going to have a curve to avoid the old 'corner in the sky' problem.

The weather was so bloody awful that I didn't get as far as I would have liked with the next phase but I made a start.

Three browns and black

My plan is to give virtually everything a couple of coats of brown, by way of mud, and then to start adding detail colours and then green stuff. When I've finished with painting I'll add the sky, I've got some Gaugemaster sky paper which is nice but the backscene behind St Ruth is a deeper blue. I think it was Faller and it isn't as realistic in some ways but it does suit my more saturated colour palette.

I popped back this evening to check if the paint was drying matt, which to my huge relief it was. I then gave the bit I'd already done a quick going over with a darker brown which has already started to give it some depth. I like this stage in the scenery making, I'm sure it will distract me from wiring for a nice long while.

It doesn't look much yet but I have high hopes.