I have to say right at the start that Ann's three canvases were a good deal more successful than mine...for a couple of good reasons.
Firstly, she is an artist and has an artist's eye for colour and form, and secondly we had a real issue with the paint cracking on the canvases...fortunately this occurred on mine and to a much lesser extent on Anns pieces.
As my craft room is quite small, Tim put up a drying table in the kitchen for us to place the wet canvases as we poured...it was a hot day and the french doors were open to let in the breeze. The canvases nearest to the open door all showed this cracking...I believe the warm air has dried the exposed areas of the canvas too quickly. Fortunately Ann had asked to watch my first pours and so my canvases were laying in front of the open door and hers were placed to the side, by the window but not in the draught...I wasn't sure at first what could have caused the issue. Tim had managed to purchase some liquid dimethicone which we used instead of the spray silicone, also we had used a tin of commercial acrylic house paint, both changes from our first pour.
But if either of those had been the problem, then all the canvases should have been affected equally. It was only when I looked at the distribution of the cracking that I realised that it was proximity to the open doorway that was common to the damage...something to avoid next time!
I think we were rather lucky when we did the first pour, not to have encountered more issues.
I am certainly now in two minds about the liquid dimethicone vs spray silicon...the dimethicone Tim found seems to cause the paint to cell up immediately, large and quite fragile...next time I will go back to using the spray silicone and compare the results...there is something infinitely satisfying about watching the cells appear gradually with the application of a little heat, rather than have giant cells pouring out of the cup, already half way to disintegration...
More on this later...