Frustration, Stupidity and the Horseshoe Curve Backdrop

One of the biggest lies I tell myself when it comes to model railroading is "I can be neat with the plaster and/or paint." Case in point is the backdrop as Horseshoe Curve. Recall a few months ago I installed a view block to separate the curve from the rest of the layout. Well, prior to building the mountains you see in the above photo, I glued some bulletin board paper with a cloud pattern on it to the view block.

Despite my best efforts, I manged to slop plaster all over the backdrop. Now if I were smart, I would have removed the cloud paper before planting trees on the mountains. But why make it easy? I thought I could use a utility knife to cut new pieces of cloud paper but the trees made that impossible.

With cloud paper defeated, it was on to plan b, painting the backdrop sky blue. I painted the backdrop and I have to say it doesn't look any better. Then again it doesn't look any worse either. Let's call it a draw.