Country Cottages - Golden Thatch and Leaded Windows

My main aim this weekend was to try and get the last of the thatched cottages that I had on the go finished. When I last worked on it I had painted the thatch but was not happy with it. I had used the same golden shades as I had before but I had deliberately dirtied it up between coats by painting it with the dirty water used for cleaning brushes.  I was also in two minds as to whether to wood paint the timber frame work or go for the black effect. 

Whilst I was out shopping on Saturday I found a whole lot of acrylic paints being sold off cheap in WH Smith, mainly brown shades, obviously not popular with regular artists but great when you’re mainly painting thatch and wood.

Here is my hoard of paints. This is nice paint, Windsor and Newton’s Galeria range, and works really well, really nice to work with.

From this hoard I selected three colours, which basically decided the outcome of my painting dilemmas. Raw Sienna when painted over the existing thatch gave it a wonderful golden effect, combined with everything that had gone on before it blended in to give a result I am really pleased with. Also in the batch of paint was Ivory Black, this made up my mind; the wood work was going to get a coat of this. I also picked their Burnt Umber for the two doors. These were painted over with the base Burnt Umber, then a Burnt Umber and White mix to soften the wood and give an aged effect.

I have now completed most of the paint work on this model, and I’ve come to the assumption it’s more of a country pub now that an a cottage, funny how these things take on a whole new character as you work on them.

I have also experimented with a new feature for the windows. If this works I’m planning on using it for the medieval town houses. I’ve tried to gain a lead pattern on the glass, and now I would really like your honest opinion if you think this works. At the moment the windows are not fitted in, they are just inserted for effect.

What I did was to take a piece of hard plastic, sprayed it with glue and stretched the netting bag supermarkets use to sell some fruit in over it. 

Once fixed I’ve cut the plastic into squares to fit the windows, so that the stretched netting looks like the small fancy leading that was common to these old style buildings.

The photo at the top of this blog is without the new windows, and the photos below are with the windows fitted.