So why did I want to become a scenic artist?!

So I have some pretty good photos that I when I went to look around the Bolshoi workshops in Moscow and it's a shame they just sit on my computer doing bother, so have a peek at them on my flickr acount (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sazsecretscene/)
Anyways, it was a private tour around the Bolshoi Theatre company that made me want to become a scenic artist, I was just in awe of the work they were producing and the dedication they had! Their workshops, where old and nothing modern about them, but this made it sort of a magaical place as it seemed they where using all the same methods that were used when the company opened up in 1776. Applied Artists out there get paid next to nothing, but when I talked to them they said they would rather being doing then anything else as it is such a rewarding job to see your work on stage.

Let me be as good as Hockney!

I have really enjoyed working on our personal projects as it made me actively independent and allowed me to use all the skills I have learned so far to produce my own painting. In a way it was like I was my own manager - I had to decide myself what to create, plan out how to go about it, choose what resources to use and fund them myself. For my project I decided to replicate David Hockney’s painting ‘Garrowby Hill’ to his standard. I chose this as I felt I could realistically get it done for the presentation date, and as a fan of Hockney’s work I thought his style would be great to learn about and would not be too hard. For my project I borrowed a book from Gary Fry called ‘Hockney’s Pictures’ which inspired me to go out and take some of my own photomontages, and at first I wanted to do a photorealism painting of one of them, but then I got a grip of reality and knew that was incredibly hard for me to attempt! However, even though I learnt a lot during this project and despite my painting looking similar to Hockney’s, I am not really happy with it or with myself. I now wish I tried something more challenging, and maybe I should have painted one of Hockney’s earlier works as his techniques back then was more advanced and more realistic, compared to his current which is a bit more abstract. So now I have decided that over the summer I will challenge myself to reproduce paintings in his earlier style so that I can further my own skills.

[Hockney's is the top picture from www.hockneypictures.com and mine is the one below]

Last few days!

One of the final tasks Faiza and I had in props was to make a German pretzel, which we carved out of poly, surfoamed them and then painted. Sadly I feel mine didn't look that great, so in hindsight I wish I had rounded mine a bit more! It was a good task in teaching me new things as I had never surfoamed anything before and it also got me using some of my paint mixing skills!

I'm sort of in two mind sets about props, while I was in the department I felt I was not having a good time, but reflecting back I do feel I have learnt more than I thought. I think I just went in with such a high from scenic that I thought props was going to be the same good atmosphere.

Candy Canes

Making the candy canes was a lot of fun and taught me some good basic skills! Originally they where going to be made out of latex but they turned out a bit too flimsy, so we used piping insulation and moulded this to the candy cane shape by make insertions and filling them with glue. Following this we, surfomed them with muslin and PVA, but then we had huge problems when we painted them white as they kept on cracking! We tired so many different ways to overcome this i.e repainting them, repainting them again with watered down paint, repainting them again with paint mixed with PVA yet nothing seemed to work. However, after talking to Astrella we found out it was because we had been using the hair dryer to dry them not all the moisture was evaporating at the same time causing cracks, so in the end we just had to leave them over night. When we went back to them the following day there was hardly any cracks and we could paint the red stripe on which we marked out with masking tape and once this had dried we glaze glossed them to make them look all juicy!

Ginger bread men, danish pastries and Cupcakes!

What I have really enjoyed doing in props, was the latex food! I'm not completely 100% sure about how to go about it as I didn't have much of ago, but basically we painted about four layers with latex mixed with paint inside the resin moulds of the food, then after it was completely dried we poured 2 part foam inside. After this had set, we removed them from the moulds (was a bit tricky so we used talcum powder to ease them out) and then finished them as following:
Cup cakes: drop shadow on the contour of the icing, pearl glaze on icing, glitter and gloss glaze on cherry.
Gingerbread men: matt glaze
Danish pastries: gloss glaze on icing, nothing on pastry

The key learning experiences in this task where how to use latex mixed with paint and how to use 2 part foam.

Hey, do you like my house?

So for the opera (Hansel and Gretel) the designer want 17 council houses ... mine and Jude task - pebble dash them! It was fun, and it was messy but most importantly we learned how to use vermiculite to create a pebble dash effect. Oh and we were able to use our colour mixing skills more confidently after our class we had with Jamie. After painting the houses a grey colour, we also got taught how to create a splatter effect on the houses to give them a less flat look and to add some more tones.
It was really rewarding when I moved on from scenic into props, as I got to work on the houses again, and this was to add all the twiddly finishing touches! Not going to lie, at times I thought I was going to cry - I kept on burning my hands on the glue gun, it was really rather monotonous and there was a point when I thought what am I really learning by doing this, I mean anyone can glue on some wood that they painted white and then stick some see-through plastic behind it! However, now looking back it was great to see something that I had worked on from start to finish and the work did really pay off. The task showed me at points in my career I'm going to have to do work that is boring, and maybe not that tasking but i'm an applied artist and have to create the work that the designer desires!

Want to trick your eyes!

Oh golly I was looking through my photos and I cam across my trompe l'oeil attmepts! So this is it sketching the outline And this is er it almost complete ... Well its not horrificly bad but compared to an article on the daily mail ( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1187338/Off-wall-The-astonishing-3D-murals-painted-sides-buildings-trompe-loeil-artist.html ) i found on the web mine is pretty abysmal! So I thought I would do some research about them and hopefully I can reproduce some like the Hawaiian artist John Pugh, i.e something along the lines of this:



So Trompe L'oeils literal meaning is 'the trick of the eye' and these illusion painting have been around since 400 B.C ... architects have even found them in the ruins of Pompeii! It is usually comedic artwork to trick viewers in thinking that something is 3-D when actually it a 2-D painting

Replicating metals and trompe l'oeil

During my time in scenic we were given three useful classes by Jamie to further our scenic art skills. The first was a mixing class was very helpful as I found creating and mixing colours difficult, and I didn’t really get the hang of the colour wheel. However, after this mixing class I found I was much more confident. The second class was replicating metal finishes and I enjoyed this class as not only did I learn about different metal powders, paints and sprays, I also learnt what substances you have to bind the powders and how to clean your brushes properly. The final class we had gave us an insight into trompe l’oeil, which was rather difficult, and I learnt that this technique only works from certain angles so you have to be very careful not to draw what you want to draw, but what you actually see.

Jude with 'Max' our luck guinea pig to use our new metallic painting skills on ... as you can see from the photos it didn't turn out so good!

Cup Cakes

Jude's and I main task during our time in scenic was to replicate a cupcake fabric on a larger scale. The original fabric was chosen by the director of 'Hansel and Gretel' to be used for the witches apron, however, the fabric was too expensive to buy and the cupcake weren't big enough. The task was daunting at first, we had to scale up the cupcake to 12cm, cut down the cupcake designs on the fabric from 19 to 7, mix the colours, cut the stencils out, grid up the fabric, come up with a continuos and appealing pattern by the end of the week!



To make the stencils, we used an ingenious idea; freezer paper.
It was really easy to use, basically you draw your design out on the paper (its actual use is to wrap up food to put in freezer!) and then cut it out with a scalpel knife, however we had to cut out tons ... well not tons but over a hundred! I learnt a lot during the task such as: learning to work to a deadline as it had to be finished in a week, i learnt how to use freezer paper, to be patient and careful as if you didn't wait for the paint to dry things could easily get mucked up and I learnt that team work really pays off - Jude and I had each had a different role in the process which made the whole process go so much quicker!

Back in Scenic

Wahoooooo! Thats the word I can use to describe with being back in Scenic Art, not that I hadn't been happy in all the other rotations but I felt the had dragged on and I just wanted to get stuck in with what I came to RSAMD to do.

To begin with there wasn't much work to get on with, so we started with personal projects; i chose to paint a realistic painting of peeling paint - sadly i have forgotten to take a photo of it so I will put one up later! Not going to lie it was rather tricky ... golly colour mixing is so damn hard! However, i think i've sort of got the knack of it and I've nearly finished it :)