Lesson Learnt

After meticulously masking the lettering, I sponged on the colours and also the shading.  It looked great until I tried to remove the masking tape!  Disaster!  I used ordinary masking tape instead of the green painters variety and it was a big mistake.  When I pulled at the tape it lifted some of the underlying paint and all the edges had bleed.

I tried just retouching with a paint brush but didn't like the untidy result, so ... I am once again masking all the letters and sponging the background colour around them!!  Crazy!  But I do like the result.

Now I just need to outline the letters!