Adding even more color

 Well, after doing the fascia, it was time to think about the backdrops as I am now adding some webbing to begin land forms and the backdrop has to be done before I can do plastering in the foreground. My daughter, Julie, came for a couple of days to squeeze in some time showing me how to work with acrylics to create distant hills. We went to Michael's and bought a selection of colors in tubes along with a No. 12 round brush.

 Julie, is showing the palette of greens and the colors she used to create them before we started. We gravitated towards the darker greens as it is summer and the hills seem to be darker than in the early Fall.

 I first put up some Masonite scraps to show the top of the land form. I do not want to glue to the sheet rock as that will make a mess when I am gone. I made a mistake and carried the Masonite over a valley and we had to go back and repair that later.

 Julie has started with the distant hills and they came out surprisingly well. She is essentially just pushing the brush onto the wall to create a tree canopy.

 Rose came down to check out what was happening in the train room with her Mom. Fortunately, Memere was able to keep the children occupied upstairs and at a local beach while Mom worked with Grandpa.

 Here is a view of the start of what we were doing. In the narrow strip it looks great.

 Now she added the valley after I took out the offending Masonite. The foreground of the hill will have to be covered with some sort of trees in 3D to make this work.

As you can see, the distant view looks like trees on a hill side - so that works. The problem is that there is no room for anything significant in front of the backdrop. The track is just about 5 inches from the wall. So, I had planned a road to be there but I am going to have to find some building photos for a small town. I will paste them to the wall as building fronts. I will also add some trees to go into the space behind the station and the other building. I will have to go out and find weeds to make trees out of. I have plenty of weeds around here but I need something like Goldenrod. I am also going to spray the top of the hill with a white to blend it more into the blue and make it look further away. 

A little color

 Well, as I finished the fascia around Weigh Scales, i got very ambitious and decided I had looked at bare Masonite long enough. So, I painted the fascia for the whole interior layout aisle with a color that I thought looks sort of like PRR Dark Green Locomotive Enamel. It is a very dark green which is good and bad. The good is that it covers well and hides dirt. The bad is that it shows dust easily, especially from your hand if you brush it. This view is looking back from Shamokin, the only unbuilt area on the layout.

 As we walk down the aisle we go by Shamokin Creek Narrows on the right and the entrance to Northumberland Yard on the left.

 Here we arrive at Weigh Scales and the panel is in and the jacks for the local cab are installed. Weigh Scale is now complete except for scenery.

 Coming around the corner, the end of Weigh Scales is to the right and the future Icing Station is to the left where the construction material is.

 We now look down the aisle to the bridge over the creek and Paxinos is ahead on the wall. The yard curves by on the left.

 The east end of the Yard is on the left and Paxinos is along our right shoulder. I decided to start recessing the control panels here to avoid problems with people walking by.

 Around the next turn and the diesel engine terminal is on the left and Crowl is on our right. Reed is in the distance.

 Around the next turn and Reed is on the right and the turntable is coming up on the left

 The end of the aisle and the main crosses the Susquehanna on an arch bridge . The double truss bridges are on the far left.

 Here is a close up of Weigh Scales panel. A nice long gathering yard with a couple of industries. The color is much brighter than actual due to the flash.

This is looking towards Shamokin on the left and the high bridge up to Mt. Carmel. I have to finish this carpentry and fascia soon so I can finish the painting of the green fascia.