Looking for help with checks - no kidding!

[Terri Ficenec]

I'm currently working on a painting where a large area of the canvas will be a shirt that has a light blue/dark blue gingham type check. I had originally thought ...well, it'll be tedious, but not really a problem... (what was I thinking!) Started out painting the individual checks but found that maintaining a consistent size and realistic color variations/shading across the fabric was a problem. The painting is 24"x18", so the shirt will cover roughly a 12"x14" area (see reference photo below).

SO, now I've reverted to painting the entire shirt as if it were the lighter of the two colors, and am thinking that when this dries I'll add the darker check pattern with some translucent glazes (vertical 'lines' then once those dry horizontal crossing ones) over top of the lighter color. Will this work??

I have a feeling this shirt will be very time consuming, regardless of how I do the checks... but I do want to put them in there! Any tips (either what has worked for you or what has not!) would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!