The poor old cow is wrecked

Well, I proceeded to just dive into the illumination of the letter "C" with the cow in it and the poem "I never saw a purple cow, I never hope to see one, but I can tell you anyhow, I'd rather see than be one" So, first of all, the lettering sucked, too big and too dark, even though I laid it out first on tracing paper and did an overlay. My mistake was in using the brush lettering I am learning instead of a fine point pen...too fat. So, I went over it in a lighter color which helped, but then, of course I went over it and over it until it got nice and messy. I am working with gouache, so it reconstitutes after it dries and makes it impossible to work on top of work neatly...so...I sprayed it with Krylon..The first couple of layers worked OK and looked OK...but, of course, I kept on screwing around with it endlessly until it was totally screwed and looking like a plastic thing with bleeding letters and vines, etc. The last layer of Krylon did it. I had meticulously painted lines, leaves, etc...(took hours) and then the last shot of krylon dissolved all the work I had done...it was just gone..leaving behind a little mess of color here and there...also, all the gold work that took at least an hour is now looking like a dull yellow dot...kind of disappointing but a GREAT lesson. I am not sure exactly what the lesson is...but I do know that it involves Krylon. Anyway, I will continue to try to work on letters...I don't know if I am up for the "C" and the cow right now...maybe...sans Krylon..sans fat brush...maybe sans poem. Sans something, anyway...I am down, but not out...OK I will keep this posting going as I work this out...Next time will be better.