WORK IN PROGRESS - Show of Hands - Stage 3

Well,things progress slowly but surely. But it is pretty clear to me now what the real size and scale of this project is, its huge. A lot of intense work will have to take place if it's to be finished by the 17th Dec. Still not certain I will be able to do it. This anxiety has made me bring it home with me, to work on it over the weekend, hopefully to push it on more significantly.

Because painting time during the week is precious, I've not been able to complete collecting hand outlines this week. I do however have the majority, 80 out of a possible 107ish. Only 27 more to go! Though using the recycled packaging for the canvas was a good idea, its not proving that stable a surface. It takes the paint but only as a skin that tends to flake off in places where the textile is creased or uneven. I've base coated it in polyurethane varnish, followed by PVA Glue, the latter usually fixes most things, but not 100% here. Too late, I've realised I should have fully coated the canvas with PVA first, before applying the primer. But that said it is manageable. It means every time I move it some surface will come off that I'll have to re-paint later. So moving has to be kept to a minimum. In the meantime I'll just keep slapping on layers of PVA until it holds.

The 'colouring in' is going well, and looks good too. Because I'm painting something five and a half by one and a half metres, I went for the cheapest student range of acrylics I could afford. In terms of time this has probable not been a cost effective choice. My colourways were worked out in artists quality acrylic, which covered well,and gave good density in one coat, whereas the student quality takes a couple of coats to cover and achieve a moderate density. I've doubled my workload by making this choice. However, my outlay on paint would have more than doubled otherwise.

Considering I've never painted something of quite this size before, I actually think I'm doing really well.