Books Vignette Progress Four

....well, some progress has been made, but there are also more difficulties to deal with. At any rate, I made the three sections of panelling, which I will detail here:

Above are the three sections in their base coat of terra cotta paint. The front wall section now has to be re-done, as I made it backwards; i.e., the window is not centered in the wall, as the book spines are different thicknesses, and I papered and panelled the wrong side....

The same panels, with the larger pieces now dry-brushed in dark burnt umber, and sponged in the same colour with first, the coarse sponge and then the finer sponge. The small panelling piece has not yet been sponged in this photo.(Sponges are in the photo below.)

On top of the dark burnt umber, I dry-brushed on a deep mustard colour called Antique Gold, (not a metallic gold). This adds a nice depth to the pieces. The upper piece is not yet brushed with the gold colour; you can see it looks more reddish.

The last coat of colour is a wash of diluted brown iron oxide, to blend the colours. In this photo, the two upper panels have been washed with the oxide, the lower one has not; you can see how the iron oxide wash blends and tones everything nicely.  Once it is dry, it can be given a coat of satin varnish.

Laid out on the floor, it's looking pretty good.  (But remember, the left-hand section will have to be re-done as I did it backwards.) The white strips are where the panel sections fit together; a space has to be left as the cardboard used for the panels has some thickness. The wallpaper doesn't add any appreciable thickness, so it doesn't need trimming.

I did learn a very valuable lesson; the shiny printed side of the packaging cardboard I used (a  cereal box and a carton that held frozen waffles) will not glue to the walls unless you first sand it to create some roughness. The plastic of the gator board also needs to be sanded to allow the glued panel to adhere to its surface. Then it has to go under weights overnight to dry thoroughly. I used a Bostick glue stick to hold my paper to the plastic; hopefully, it will hold well. My sample is nicely stuck on, so it ought to work.

Now I have to re-paper the correct side of the front wall, and make another section of panelling. And one good thing, I was so frustrated that I gave my work area a thorough cleaning!