The screen was at the stage of painting after we had glued the seperate frames together with Evostick (contact adhesive) and clamped the pieces overnight to ensure a firm hold. Instead of creating woodgrain effect (we tried this but stopped because it did not work very well with all the lumps and details of the screen plus there was a lack of paint after other panels and furniture in the two groups rooms.) We wanted the screen to look burnt, dark and a dominant feature of the room. A piece that intimidates and looks engulfed by death and Ivan's fears and nightmares. The base coat was a dark brown (burnt umber). Then using a dry brush and some black paint I picked out areas of definition and shade blending and bleeding the black across, darkening the whole piece, resembling to me the roasted skin of a chestnut, a rich brown, blistered with black burns. Once these layers had dried I used a bronze acrylic applied with my finger to pick out the details and features. Later Rob and I completed the surface effect using French Polish, thickly applied and then Rob splashed droplets of water to the wet polish, this created a water mark with a slight white reaction that immediately aged the surface alluding to mould and stains.
The batwing detail was mounted in the top of the middle panel with araldite adhesive and two screws were then drilled into the back through to the two thicker sections of the hourglass. The next stage was to hinge the panels together. We screwed on the four brass hinges then stood up the screen to see if the weight distribution was equal. Unfortunately we came across many problems. One problem was that the two outer panels of the screen did not bend in enough inward to be able to stand, the wooden routed pieces at the bottom of the panels had to have the corners cut away to allow the screen to bend inward. Using a hack saw Rob took off these corners. Another issue was that the central panel was too top heavy and it leant backwards. We agreed we needed to make the screen rock forward to allow this weight to lean forward on the two outer feet. Using a jigsaw we cut slithers off these two outer feet. Wedges off the bottom now meant the screen could fall forward slightly and lean onto these two outer feet. Now the weight was evenly distributed because the central panel was not leaning backwards. The last thing was to touch up areas of paint that had not covered all the MDF or paper mache. We decided against adding the mirrors for many reasons. Though the mirrors would have been a great feature to the room and another distortion to focus on, real mirror would be very expensive to get cut to the sizes me needed (and breaking it would hae taken longer than we had to convinsingly reassemble) the fake plastic mirror surface that is sold in the store was more like a funhouse mirror it frosted and sratched very easily. Many people in the group said that the fun house effect woud have been good but in the back of my mind was alway the worry that it would just look fake. I figured we have done so well on it so far and I would hate to ruin it with over oing it with mirrors that never look convinsing. Plus the effects of the fabric were loved so much by the group we though it would be a shame to cover it with mirror.
Other activities that went on today included... Nicky and Callum fitting the second door onto its hinges, Fiona finished painting and glazing the tiles. Jenny and Rhyan completed the stenciling of the wallpaper, Steph and Kirby continued to plan how to baroque the comfy chair. Fiona brought in a vast selection of old picture frames and mirrors that already were of the baroque fashion but either needed repainting or fixing, Abby and Nicky proceeded to do this while Nicci used the gold paint to pick out delicate features of her table legs. Dan, Chloe and Nuria began work on the writing desk starting with the four legs, they skillfully carved the pine legs using a lathe. Lauren worked on painting her small table. 
pictures sourced from 
Fiona continued to paint her tiles, Chloe and Dan painted their book shelf and began on the doors for it. Nicky and Callum constructed two double skinned flats for the double doors into the drawing room. Abbie upholstered her pouffe and Rhyan Jenny and Vicky continued to stencil the drawing room and study. Their stencils were taken from designs that Rhyan found in a William Morris book, photocopied and traced using acetate then cut out with a scalpel and using sponges the paint was applied to the walls.
After we had completed the task of buying fabric we head to the V&A to study some of their baroque furniture in the British and European 1500 -1900 section. I observed tables, frames, mirrors, chairs, panelling and tiles as well as smaller props like clocks and ornimants. They all follow a similar pattern of over embelished extravigantly carved gold. Much of our furnitire could be discribed as subdued baroque. We have used a lot of dark woods in the furniture we have made and aquired but not much is gold. I believe we are slightly intimidated by this furniture movement, on a small budget, with little experience in sculpting, and furniture construction/ restoration we did not want it to look cheap or tastless opposing everything that baroque ever stood for. Looking at these magnificent pieces or craftsmanship it is clear gold needs to feature in our room more, the fabric we bought today will hopefully inject some richness of texture back into our subdude designs.
Other members of group 2 were continuing with the rooms. Rhyan Jenny and Vicky were still applying a layer of paste to the plywood skins then wallpapering over the top with the plain liner. Fiona with help from others was transfering her tile designs from tracing paper onto the primed white MDF tiles. Chloe and Dan were putting the final ideas together for their bookcase before beginning construction the next week. Construction of furniture was slowed down at the end of the week as we were waiting for a wood order. Nicky reupholsterd her desk chair as it was felt her first attempt was too neat and taught, it needed loosening so she stripped down the fabric and reaplied the staples and braid. 
