Dotology

Over the past four days I have been sticking grass and bushes, and arranging full sheets onto the canvass. It is definitely quicker doing big sections rather than the smaller ones I was doing earlier. I just wish I had done this from the beginning because what I was taking up my time is definitely joining them on the canvass and the less edges I have the better. The problem is now that I have loads of the beginning edges still not sorted and that is taking ages, so I am doing an hour a day to sort them out.

Another thing I have learnt is that as soon as an area is sorted to varnish it straight away. I did not do this at the beginning and the bits I did seven weeks ago are finally starting to fall off in mass amounts, so now as I do a section I varnish it. Again I will have to go back and sort out the beginning sections as they have holes where dots have jumped off and tried to escape. Again I am doing a little bit at a time to fix this and will not be making these mistakes again. Very time costly! You can see the bits I have varnished and not yet varnished because the colour becomes slightly richer when varnished. I knew this would happen before I varnished as I did a sample back in February and compensated for that when I started choosing the colours.

I wish I had thought of this method years ago then I could have perfected it before I started this piece. But I didn’t so I will just have to learn as I go. The fact I haven’t done a big piece before maybe should have put me off doing this, but that would have been a shame, I’ll just have to do more when I finish this one so I can perfect one!
Yes I did really say that!

The thing that is bothering me is that I don’t feel that some areas are perfect. I have become addicted to sticking the dots and the fact the beginning areas are not perfect is annoying me. I want to fix them now, but I can’t spend the time on them now or I won’t finish anywhere near in time. But sitting looking at them is annoying me.

Fort instance one of the black sheets I have joined, one of the first ones I did, I did as a single sheet. Now I can’t get it to blend in with the surrounding black sheets. It has only happened on the really dark areas which I did early on, and hadn’t learnt to leave paper and gaps between the sheets, so the joins are raised and are really visible in this area. (See previous Blog – Catch up time) I will sort this out over the next few weeks, I need to think.

I really like the colours on the bit of bush I am doing at the moment. I have got better at mixing the colours which again makes me want to go back and change the first bits. But I can’t so I have to be careful not to get so good that it ends up looking like different styles. Although I did do the easier bits at the start for that reason.

I think the past two weeks I have done the same amount I did in the first five. But it is a "learn as you go" situation. I will be a “Dotology” specialist at the end of this!