Rock Me Gently

This is a picture of Eagle's Nest Pub, in its early stages.  It's currently gracing the kitchen island (and preventing me from cooking dinner).  In my sketches, and in my imagination, this is a small tudor-style pub on a craggy hill, alive with all sorts of plant life.  When you're building a dollhouse of any kind, you start with the "bare bones" and work out--so, here, I have the basic structure of the house, and the hill it sits on.  Before I can finish the pub, I need to electrify it, and finish constructing the hill--which, at this point, is giving it a granite finish.  

Easier said than done.

I imagined, in my foolishness, that this would be a relatively simple step--surely no more than a few days!  Hah, little did I know.  I slaved over the hill, laboriously painting it with coat after coat of granite paint--I even mixed multiple colors of paint, for the most realistic effect possible.

This is what the hill looked like, after three coats of paint:

Yes, it still looks like styrofoam.  Which is exactly what it is.

Ultimately, I realized I had to try a different tack.  Instead of painting it on with a brush, I decided to ignore conventional advice--several thin coats are better than one thick coat--and slather it on.  My theory was, the coats were so thin, the paint was simply soaking right in to the little holes.

I discarded my brush in favor of a sponge applicator, and began to shovel it on.  Here, you can see the difference:

At first, I was a little discouraged, because the paint looked very soupy.  I worried, would this look like an alien's favorite pub?  Maybe the moon really was made of green cheese!  However, as it dried, the paint definitely began to take on a granite-like look and feel.  Now, if only I had more paint...