A Piece of My Mind: Lady Billows' House

This is the house where Lady Billows lived.

Lady Billows is the self imposed ruler of the village of Loxford. Her house is the least weathered and quite pretty.
It was decided that we'd use a stencil to reproduce the wallpaper and this is how it was done..

The Model for Lady Billows house

The stencil for the wallpaper was started before christmas. Maisie, from second year, created a design based from the reference and only managed to cut out a few flowers before christmas break.
The cutting of the stencil must have had at least 5 people work on it until it was complete.
It was one of those jobs with reasonably low priority that needed done.
Once it was cut, it was coated with shellac, to make it a little more durable.

There are so many intricate cuts on this stencil, I feared it wouldn't last, but a little gentle care and attention would at least help it on its way.

Everyone went carefully at first..

A couple of days before the house was ready to paint, the roof of the house came through to us and gave us the opportunity to practice the stencilling.

In order to register the stencil with the roof piece, I first marked on the stencil where the top and bottom was. I then measured the centre of the design and alligned it with the roof as per the reference.
Secured the stencil with masking tape and rollered in the pink colour with a colour I'd mixed up earlier, whilst anyone else available came and helped with the green on the leaves.

Then got stuck right in!

The flower print was on all Lady Billows' interior walls, but the colours of both flowers and leaves differed from pink wall and blue. The blue wall's flowers and foliage were slightly warmer.

When the stencil was lifted you could see that some of the areas where the paint applied had been thinner had bled, so it was necessary to paint back in the base colour.
It's interesting to discover that when the paint dried, the green leaves seemed to stand out. It was too green and overpowered all the other colours. So by adding a little red I dulled the green and made it slightly darker which I didn't want, so I then added a little white and it fitted in.

All the buildings in Loxford were a little weathered and grimy, but since Lady Billows was a women of standing and authority it seemed her house was just a little bit cleaner. So when it came to dirtying her house, it had to be more subtle. I discussed this with Anna, the designer, she told me she'd like a ring of dirt like a lens around the roof and the interior doors. She'd illustrated so in the model.

The dirtying was interesting. I had to consider I was working onto painted wood and it was fortunate I could lie the roof flat. I wanted to use watery washes of a dirty colour so as not to obscure too much of the flower design and make it too dirty. The water would run and drip if I applied too much at once, however I could use a sponge or rag to lift the paint and leave a natural shape.
I also had to consider the colour of the dirty wash. Gary suggested using both a warm brown, burnt umber and a cold raw umber and also a mixture of them both. This adds a bit more depth and information to the layers. I had so many dirty colours mixed up at one point I couldn't find any clean pots!
Also, Gary showed me a trick for lifting the paint off using meths. He literally dripped meths onto the surface. The paint was so thin and watery it produced really cool circle patterns where it landed. I wish I'd taken a picture of it!
I didn't really want circles so I sponged them out. But nice to know ! :D

After the roof it was onto the house. I had Josh, Micha and Jackie, the three first years to plot into my schedule. I didn't want to give them jobs that would stress them, so I asked Micha and Jackie to prime and base colour the house whilst Gary helped Josh paint the Greengrocers. I quickly realised that I would have to have a stream of jobs ready for them when they finished each one. I guess here's where my managerial role kicked in. Since it was literally the first time they had been in a workshop, I had to stop and explain most things. It was nice to discover that I actually knew something and that people seemed to be interested in learning from it, but it was hard at times to divide my time and attention.
The house was ready to be stencilled. I asked Micha to help me and we spent from 10am til 9pm that night just finishing the pink interior complete with base colour touch ups
- I dreamt of stencilling and flowers that night.

As always, things get quicker when you get into the swing of things. You find a routine. I didn't want to freak Micha out with working up the top of the ladder so I took that job. She was basically like a nurse assisting the surgeon in theatre, she'd hand me up anything I needed whilst painting in the bottom half and we created a system of work. Good times!