I plan to use the existing white latex primed drywall walls that surround my new HO layout as a background rather than use hardboard supported by the layout. It is my current plan to paint a sky using three colors of latex paint to simulate a clear, cloudless sky.
Has anyone tried this? Any thoughts as to how I can blend these three colors so that they go from lighter to darker shades as you look up from the layout? Thankyou for your help!
There was an article fairly recently in MR, if I recall correctly, that is the answer to your question. I’d seen it before, too.
The short answer is to start with a couple of shades of sky color, one light, one dark, then paint the bottom the light color, the top the dark color, then blend them while they are still wet. I should have used a darker dark, and my backdrop is only about 18", but the technique worked well for me.
Two colors are adequate. Sky is bluer overhead and whiter toward the horizon so buy a gallon of sky blue and a gallon of ceiling white ( bone white if you want posluted sky on the horizon. In about a 2’ wide area paint the white on at the bottom and about half way up. Do the same for the blue from the top down. Then take a four inch brush and blend them working horizintally. They will run together and even out. If you want you can the take a four inch brush with a very tiny amount of white paint and scrub it into the surface to blend in cumulous clouds and just a touch of a gray on the bottoms of the clouds. You will be very surprised what you can do with a little practice. I practiced on the sides of cartons and had the technique down in fifteen minutes. Like anything else 90% is just starting the job.