The Chapel Ceiling.....

 

 Slowly But Surely....

I Hope you will understand, Dear Readers, why it takes so long to make so little progress on such a small piece of the painted ceiling in The Chapel of my Castle dollhouse. For one thing, the paintbrushes I use are small to tiny in size. For another, I have to mix the paints to the right color blends and consistency as I need them, and being acrylic paints they dry quickly... which is good in one sense but means I am constantly mixing more and using only a tiny tiny bit in a teeny tiny space in a little specific corner of this ceiling before needing to use a slightly different color and so on! The Triangular area of The Judgement scene is 5 inches tall by 10 inches wide at the widest, the angels are all less than two inches tall and the people are 1 inch at the most..... it is slow and careful going! But when I get started the hours can disappear, and bit by bit the figures become what they were meant to be. I finally got back into it last week... just painting the features on the angels' faces... then outlining all the human bodies...

And starting in on the Angels' robes... 

and forgetting to take many photos...

Adding details to their wings, 

another layer of blue to the background

and starting in on the devils.... All in a days work!

And then because the morning sun was shining into the Chapel

 I needed to take a bunch of pictures while the light was so beautiful...

And you can see how the Judgement Scene arches over the doorway...

 with Christ's birth on one side and his death on the other...

The Madonna and Child over the altar.... 

Christ on the right and Moses on the left...

The incomplete Creation Scenes above the Adam and Eve Temptation....

 completely washed out by the direct sunlight....

And the whole ceiling in one shot... 

revealing how much there still is to do!

And working on the Creation Scenes again.... 

adding the faces to the suns in the rest of the scenes...

which was all I accomplished that day...

Because some days, Dear Readers, the slowness of the progress

 is due to my own uncertainty about what to do...

 first... next.... before... after..... what color... how much..... 

and fixing tiny oopses.... 

the Moon faces were particularly challenging here, 

being each about 3/16th of an inch across!

And the oh so tiny details on the leafy trees.... 

in two additional shades of green...

not to mention the flowering blooms

 with an entirely other green...

And starting to add more grassy ground plants...

And adding the grassy ground around Adam and Eve....

never quite sure when to stop.

And the next day starting to add layers and details to the beasts...

Bit by bit making them sort of recognizable... 

the Medieval painter had a fairly standard list of beasts to include.

Here the beasts are mostly completed...

 the ox and the horse, the sheep and the hare, 

the boar and the stag, the camel and the dog... (or wolf)....

Here they are even closer... 

each Creation "world" is about 2 inches across...

And adding a little more outline definition to Adam and Eve... 

I will have to decide if they need more.

And that is as far as I got, Dear Readers,

 adding tiny bits of paint and Slowly but Surely

 making progress on the Chapel Ceiling!

More Painting...

 

The Boring Kind...

Way Back at the beginning of Summer, Dear Readers, I mentioned that over the years I had come to think of Summer as "castle building season". This is mostly because the light is better at his time of year, and the windows can be opened to easily ventilate the paint fumes which arise with the larger painting tasks. Some of you might remember that it was a few years ago already that I realized the plywood exterior of The Castle really needed to be painted to protect it from becoming too dry and brittle... and even so, I was not able to accomplish painting all the walls inside and out that summer nor the next and so on! The last two completely unpainted rooms remained in the "Lady's Tower" above The Chapel, as you can see in the above photo taken last June. July was spent working on the Great Hall windows and August saw much progress on The Chapel interior. September was mostly consumed by travel (preparing, going, returning and recovering!) and suddenly here we are in Autumn. The days of open windows were quickly disappearing.... 

                                 Was there still time to get the Tower rooms primed and painted?

                                                     There was only one way to find out... 

                     And that was to start painting.... primer coats on everything... both sides...

 Sorry about the dark photos....

 it was hot and the blinds were closed...

(Blogger has been giving me trouble with the line spacing... no idea why!)

As you can see, The Towers get used for storage

 and I had been avoiding clearing it off...

But I wanted to paint the crenellations too....

The placement of the interior stairs wall was going to

 be too close to the back window... 

and I was resisting the idea of fixing it....

 I decided to paint the rocks while I debated.... first the rock outlines.....

 Then the texture...

 But the window would have to be reduced in width!

Fortunately, I still had the original cut-out 

and was able to reshape the opening.

For both windows!

And with primer on the inserts....

And the rock texture added....

Every now and then a flash photo... 

here with the smaller windows...

 And finally painting the grout lines!

And the grout lines on both walls!

And the whole exterior with the doors attached...!

                                               Well, Dear Readers, it would appear that I did have time to paint the two remaining rooms... even if I was not able to paint the exterior of the Tower's last side wall. That wall will need to have the wiring and a buttress added before painting it. And since I have not been able to figure out blogger's line spacing problem.... I will leave it here... Just the boring kind of painting!

 

Stitching Update....

 

 A Stitch Here... A Stitch There...

It Has been a while, Dear Readers, since I showed you progress on the many petit-point projects I have under way. Above is the mini Christmas stocking kit I started on the "extra day" of my recent travels. I was so worn out once I got home that tackling big projects was beyond me. So I pulled out the little stocking and just added a few stitches from time to time. These stockings are quite small and the stitches add up quickly!

Before too many days had passed I was seeing great progress!

The background is supposed to be "pink" for a girl...

but it is such a pale shade of pink it almost doesn't look pink!

And as I began to recover my energy 

 and look around at all my waiting projects....

(a few too many perhaps?)

I realized that I was so close to completing the 

William Morris carpet that I should just get it done!

All I needed to do was finish the border background

 and bind the edges all around.

Sorry about the darkish picture......

But you can see that the stitching is finished!

Here you can see it has been removed from the frame 

and I have begun to bind the edges.

And as for the Dragon Carpet, Dear Readers, 

I had reached a difficult place and hadn't done much....

I had completed most of the leafy vine sections

 that I was sure I would use as the original chart placed them.

You might remember that the original was very different... 

(no dragons for starters!)

 

 The central medallion was way too small.... 

so I designed the Dragons for the middle...

But on either side of the center there is a

 "golden" figure of something I can't quite decipher.

Is it supposed to be a pineapple...?

A Turtle...?

I just am reluctant to continue with this part of the design!

It needs a makeover....

Which I am starting to attempt to design....

You will be the first to see it when I have it figured out!

But meanwhile, the border needs to be worked on... 

and this frame is too small to do that comfortably....

But, Hey, I just took the other carpet off the bigger frame....

Here are the two frames stacked for comparison.

It doesn't look like much of a difference....

But more space is more space...

so I stretched this in the bigger frame.

Just look at all that extra room!

(Sorry it is a little blurry...)

 

I put the frame in the stand and got to work!

Up until this point I had used the smaller frame like a hoop

just holding it in my lap which was a bit awkward.

 

Now I have room to work on the borders 

as well as the redesigned side sections.

We shall see how it goes!

Meanwhile, I have finished the little stocking kit.....

 

All I have to do now is stitch it to the backing....

I'll add it to the collection of stockings waiting for that step!

 

So you can see, Dear Readers,

a stitch Here and a stitch There 

adds up to a whole lot of 

stitches in Time!