for Sarah

This is where the work is at... and tomorrow the scaffolding goes up a notch so I can reach the centre piece.

I worked a little more on the background after I made this video. Every time I move around the scaffolding I see something else I want to change, to add to, to balance, but there has to be a point where you say "Stop". This is almost 120 hours of work, with the centre still to go (Looking at it I find that hard to believe, but the surface preparation took a long time). With the help of another worker I will put a transparent glaze over the completed project. I hope that this will unify the various parts of the repaired surfaces. The "real thing" looks much better than the photos or video as my camera seems to pick up the under-surfaces very well, not what I want on this occasion! Some are also in shadow, or damp from my sponge. There are three layers of background, with me dabbing more on every day as it dries to a warm smokey grey over a brown, black, red and yellow based tint.

It has been a challenging and at times very frustrating project. Very little was completed in the way I had expected. Certainly not getting the background done until very late in the project (was that because of the weather, I wonder? Perhaps the repairs had to be really dry before I was allowed to work on that) gave me all sorts of problems. Damp and cold and now heat added to the actual physical demands of the job. The different surfaces have been a major challenge as some absorb and others don't, and some simply don't hold many of the mediums I tried so I give them a light coat of stucco before painting on them. I have worn at least three brushes down to one third of their former thickness on the coarser stucco.

My preference would have been to copy and complete all the designs, to repaint the background from scratch, and make all of it "old" from completely new rather than have a mix of old and new with incomplete images on a wide range of different surfaces. It is very difficult for me to leave pieces floating, and to allow the repairs to show through. I see myself as a technician more than an artist in this work.

When I look back at the "before" photos I do accept that relatively speaking it doesn't look too bad now. I imagine that getting the walls and flooring done, the windows and doors in, and then some furniture to change the focus will help it all come into place to create an interesting room.

Today I am grateful for Franca's smile when she saw the work.