Easter Boardom

What can you do in a rainy long weekend? It's Easter, so there's not much on TV (hundreds of adverts for chocolate, films like the Sound of Music, and the interminably dull Grand Prix). Plenty of time for hobby then, so I thought I would finally take the plunge and paint up my gameboard.

I bought it last year and sprayed it black in the garden one fine sunny day in October. Then the worst winter for 50 years happened and I have been waiting for fine weather ever since, thinking I would take it into the garage to minimise any mess. But still, the weather is cold and wintry, so I have decided to tackle it indoors.

The first thing I did was the rocky outcrops, painting them grey and then a creamy highlight, then finishing them with some brown tinted antique washes. I'm using some cheap and cheerful art paints I picked up in a DIY shop bin end sale. The effect is really quite nice.

Then the bit I had been most perplexed about, the grass and earth bits. I bought some Woodland Scenics Earth pigment to use as a base colour, but it's really disappointing and does not cover the black very well. Once it was on I scattered on Woodland Scenics turf, in various colours. I was then hoping to spray it with some diluted pva glue and water mix, but that didn't really work either. So the scatter is still very loose. The photo shows some patches that I missed, these are showing as black.

This was a test run, I need to make some changes for the other tiles. The black needs to be fully covered with the antique washes, these go on very quickly and finish to a nice opaque finish. Then I will simply dab on pva glue, scatter the turf and allow to dry overnight. Then I will seal with diluted pva using a decorating paint brush for speed. With a little luck it will be finished over the Easter break, now that I know what I am doing.