Important Update
With much regret, I need to report the death of a dear friend. My seascape is no more. Yes--it is true. She succumbed to a fast moving and invasive parasite brought on by Rayon Cotton Ball exposure. Indeed... I fought hard to save her, but she was beyond saving. She will be missed. Taps will be played at noon, CST.
Yep. My worst fears realized. It was an untested process for me and things quickly went south. Chris Flodberg is a master at his craft. Somehow--he manages to wrangle this stuff to his will. For me--at this point--it is untenable garbage. Here is what happened:
1. I began laying down fibers by following the process of the FSM article. Immediately, I was struck by how stringy these fibers are. They are long, they separate, they stretch out, they are out of scale, and they stick to everything but where you want it to go. It was atrocious. Several hours in I improved things a little by thinning the varnish some. Now--it only took three tries per application to lay a small section into a sort of cohesive manor. I began to find some rhythm. At this point, a lot of damage has already been done. Not to be dissuaded--I pushed on.
2. As I progressed, I'd look back at what was already done. I was mystified as to why it is looking so bad. I'd go back and try to correct things, and that only exasperated the problem. I began to realize that the recommended varnish was changing the look as it dries. It looked Ok as I was setting things down. You could see nice tonal ranges between the two layers. As the varnish dries though, the tonal ranges pretty much disappear into an ugly white. The end result is ... it looked like dampened down cotton. Even with pushing the boundaries of my imagination, I could not see any sort of realism. Frankly--it looked like GARBAGE! This final injustice was the ultimate death knell. I abandoned the process. I am not saying that the varnish is the issue. It is possible it was chemically reacting to the underlying paint layers. It is hard to know.
Sigh. It took a lot of restraint to keep from taking the base and throwing it into the dumpster. A cooler head prevailed. I walked away. Over the course of hours, I began to think that well, maybe, I can pull up the waves and start over. I did a little more research and I found another process that I can try. In the end--this process has the potential to look much much nicer, and much more realistic.
Maybe this is for the best. To be honest--I was not very happy with how my seascape was looking. For one--I hated the bow wave. What an ugly thing. Secondly--I was not entirely happy with the wave formations. I pushed on in the hope that the cotton fibers would pull it altogether. Wrong! It has sent it over the cliff.
So--to all those eagerly hoping to see the end--the end is not yet. My apologies.
Lastly--I will probably not post updates on the latest process and until the end. If it works out--I will post it. Otherwise, what's the point to document another boondoggle.
Thanks folks.
Steve