I have an area at the bottom of my garden that I want to screen and also brighten up so I bought two panels of 2M x 4M bamboo along with some metal posts to keep them in place. So far so good.

Ever had to wrangle a large, ill-disciplined piece of fenceage single-handed into an upright position against a garage wall? Get one end in place and the other whaa-whaas itself onto the floor, move to get it back up and down comes the other side. It’s a 4M long 2M high mindless attack blanket.

And that’s why I forgot to take any photos until I was nearly done.

To summarise, this is the middle phase where I’ve used ordinary acrylics in patches on a coat of dry, brilliant white, household paint. Neatness was never an aim, the intent was to make a colourful screen that would take on some of the visual flutter of foliage by being imprecise and almost wave-like. It also suits my painting style whereby revealing and hiding patches of colour has become a tool for adding texture in layers. The behaviour of bamboo strapped together in a large bundle means the surface is not level and there are gaps between each piece.

At this point, it has a bit odf a rastafarian vibe to it.

The patches of colour applied and left to dry, the next step was to apply a wash of the domestic household white. Now it’s an ice cream rasta.

Once that was dry, I applied a coat of sealant. I have no idea how the paint will react to weather but I do know you can’t get acrylics out of your cardigan with a scrubbing brush and a cycle in the hot wash.

Here it is outside after another upright wrangling session, this time with ivy. The touches of gold are evident in places top left and bottom right. These will need to be sealed. Oddly, it looks far more white in the photo than it does in real life.

The second section is going through the same process and has reached the point of having gold lights applied followed by the sealant. There is more blue and green in this piece.

And now, realising the difference between sealant and varnish, I have a tin of the latter ordered and due tomorrow. While I expect indoor paint to have limited survival chances on a bamboo panel in a garden, I was surprised to find it’s the white household paint that seems most vulnerable so here I go, spending more on their appearance than on the bamboo panels themselves.

The most alarming thing about this is that I’m quite enjoying working at scale and making a mess on the floor.

Next episode will be the post-varnish installation at the bottom of my garden so stay tooned folks!

(c)SCH 2025