More than just Clouds.

My client did a lot of my research for me, taking pictures of his layout, looking up photographs of what kind of terrain and scene he was interested in, and even printing up some articles about how to paint a model train layout. A couple of things that stuck out in my mind were how one of the authors considered himself an impressionism era painter and then recommended using acrylic paint.

I can honestly say that in my years of experience, impressionism has got to be a fundamental basis of all painting and drawing. When you start out drawing, painting, anything…you’re primarily putting down your impression of what you believe to be drawing before you…be it from real life or your imagination. And it isn’t until you’ve spent the time to hone your skills and abilities before you’re able to move on from that impressionism stage. Assuming you want to move on. Usually, once I find a technique or material I like, I’ll exhaust myself using it in as many possible ways imaginable before setting it aside to learn or play with something new or different. Granted, it doesn’t give me much room to grow or better my abilities…or so I assume, but at least I’m enjoying myself, right?




But that leads me to the recommendation of using acrylic paint. In all honesty, when friends with…and I don’t mean to sound snobbish, rude, or superior over the matter, as I know I’m not considering I can’t make a living off of my art…that…and I can’t think of a more nicer way of putting it in my mind so of course I’m going to think myself as sounding like a bitch for saying this…anyways…where was I?



Oh right! When friends who haven’t had the same amount of training and practice as I have in painting and drawing ask me for advice on materials to use for something specific, I always tell them…use what materials your comfortable with. You can’t put out a good piece of work if you’re using something you’re not familiar with. Of course…with that said, I completely throw that advice away the first time I used gauge and turned out a painting that earned me one of my three A++’s from one of four different classes I had with the same teacher. That project alone…which I wished I had photographed for my records before I gave it to my father for his 60th who then thus had it framed…told me that gauge, an opaque watercolor type of paint was my media of perfection. And I hate using the word perfection, because I never consider myself that good, that wonderful, that…anything pertaining to the word. I’m not perfect, but I get pretty damn close to it whenever I’m using that particular media.



Granted, the foam core that the panels are made of have a smooth surface to which water based paints can’t easily stick to, but I did manage to find a way around that. Applying the watery paint to it with a wet brush, and then scuffing it over with a dry brush helped to make not only a rough enough surface for extra layers of the paint, but also helped to create the original horizon haze and even the misty clouds that I was working when I first started. How cool is that! And with that haze, I’m able to apply more layers of paint without having to scuff it up anymore…which makes painting in the rest of the scene, mountains and valleys and trees, a whole lot easier without the extra prep work I had to put in for the clouds to begin with. HAPPY ME!



Or at least so I thought. The main difference between the clouds and the rest of the terrain was the fact that with the clouds, I could use the blue base as it’s shade…and focus on just the whites for the highlights. With the terrain…I have to cover up all the blue, instead of using it as part of the shades. This leads to adding layers and layers and layers of paint before I even get remotely comfortable to where I don’t have to worry about the wetness of fresh paint possibly revealing the original blue under color. However, I will not let this get the better of me! I WILL PREVAIL! Please proceed to imagine me shaking my clenched fist up to the heavens in a defiant manner. Then smile.







Of course, it’s when you start mixing your medias…along with the way you apply the medias to the board, that things become messy and rather complicated. Completing the clouds and mountains in strictly a mixture of watercolor and gauge…both basically being one and the same only with the difference in transparency, I thought that I could get the best effect of grass and trees by using oils. But you see, I thought I was being smart, because a couple of months ago, I went and bought myself a sample pack of water soluble oil paints. And they’re really nice too, because in the way that they’re water soluble, you can mix your watercolors with them. So…I was having fun playing with that…and I’m sure things would have been find and dandy if I had kept to the same stroking technique I was using for the watercolors and gauge. But you see…I wasn’t. I was using not only different brushes to get the nice grassy effect I was going for, but the rough dabbing technique with such a watery substance my paint was in…ended up splattering and splashing color onto my mountains, clouds…and blank sky areas.

And trying to clean and fix that up…getting the greens and yellows out of a flat blue sky…not to mention the subtle bits of white I used to create the clouds. It’s disheartening. Sure…I wouldn’t have minded too much if this were a project of my own imagination and simply doing so for fun. But now? I feel like I should just sit down and cry…but the tears simply aren’t coming to me. Probably because the quiet rationalist in me is saying that it’s not the end of the world, and if I can’t fix it back to the niceness that it once was, I can at least paint over some of it in hopes that it will still look nice enough for the client. I’M HOPING! Much prayers will be uttered to the gods while I’m stressing over it the closer I get to completing this project. My main issue is the fact that I know where the mistakes are, and I’ll want to point them out…just to apologize profusely about it. I know this, because I’ll have someone like my roommate look at a piece. “Oh, that looks nice. It looks fine”…and such. And then I’ll point them out. “No! No it’s not fine! I messed up here, and here…and look at the yellow discoloration there. CAN’T YOU SEE IT?! GAH!” “Well…I didn’t notice it before…” Ok…now I can feel the tears coming on. Anyone want to donate their shoulder for me to cry on?









And in other news…my mother made my roommate a denim blanket for X-mas. Complete with a toy train underside. However, she primarily made it for the denim loving calico. Just look at how much she loves that thing!