Fall has finally arrived in the mountains of Western North Carolina. We thought it would never get here but it came in on a cold breeze on Saturday. The temp dropped from highs n the eighty's last week to lows just above freezing over the weekend. It finally is beginning to feel like Halloween.
Despite the chilly weather, I spent about 10 hours paining the ship on Saturday. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. It looks a lot better than I expected. At first, I Frankensteined 3.5 gallons of what I thought was a pretty Taupe. Instead it turned out to be Battle Ship Grey once it was on the ship. Luckily I had decide to paint the back first just in case I didn't like the color. While it wasn't a bad color, it would have made the ship look like it was steal instead of wood.
So, back to the garage I went in search of brown to add to the grey. After some mixing only a mad scientist would have been proud of, I came out with a nice brown/grey/taupe. Only after I started painting, did I realize it was an almost exact match for the Masonite I had built the ship out of. This ended up working to my favor in that it killed the bright white plywood I had used on the flat surfaces. Once everything was painted, I came back with high lights and low lights with a dry brush. Next I mixed a dark brown to emphasize the shadow lines. I used the same dark brown to draw in "cracks" between the boards to play down the plywood. Once I finished with the brown I did it all again with the blue.
For a punch of color, I painted the cannon ports red. Hopefully I will be able to finish them today. For some reason, I cant find my 1/2" drill bit. But when your garage looks like mine at the moment, there's no telling where it is.
Sunday, I painted the trim Gold, and worked on some details. I started 4 cannons for the ports. Hopefully I can finish them one night this week. I also need to start on the sails. They need to be stained, aged, and cut out.
My to do list just keeps growing! Can we move Halloween back a couple of weeks? How needs Thanksgiving anyway?