This weekend is a statutory holiday in our province so the crew is off this Monday. This gives me a little more time to catch up on some personal projects - one of which is the mechanical fish of course. With Labor Day now less than a month distant the 'competition' deadline is looming. Looking at my schedule for the rest of the month means I had to put a few hours in to make sure I don't get behind.
Today was the day to apply some paint to the dock. I disassembled the dock one last time to make painting easier. I decided the background needed a good coat of primer before it's last paint, then I started in on the rocks. I painted out of multiple buckets of paint at once, randomly dipping my brush in the various colours. The rock work was a little bright but I knew with the application of the dark glaze , yet to come, everything would be toned down considerably. The look I was going for was a facility built in the 30's, used heavily for three decades and then left abandoned. There would be plenty of industrial grunge and grime. The heavy duty cast iron bits would all sport a heavy coat of rust.
Once the base colours on the rocks were done it was time for the dark glaze. I kept things a little lighter at the top, darkening towards the base to add weight and age. The dark will frame the fish beautifully when we are done.
There is still some rock work to do on the bottom of the dock but it had to wait until the back was on permanently.
The textured blue background then recked it's final coat of metallic blue to make it ready for final assembly. With the lights turned on the contrast between the dark frame and the bright blue was amazing!
While I wait for everything to harden up properly and for the last rust to form (a 24 hour process) I hung the mechanical fish in place to see how everything looks together. The fish is still much too bright but that will tone down when I apply the glazes soon.
Now it is time to spend some time on other projects... but I'll be back soon. Stay tuned...
-dan
