Front Row - BBC Radio 4

So just chilling watching Project X (the film about 3 school high school seniors that throw a birthday party that spirals out of control) I'm laughing and also being depressed that I am almost finished Uni and the chances of going to a wild party again getting slimmer by the day. Anyways halfway during the film my dad comes in and says I'm listening to Radio 4 and suggests that I should come into the kitchen to listen. Reluctantly I twaddle into the kitchen to listen to some documentary and it turns out to be really interesting.

Negotiated Project day 4

Lindt Factory

My Brother eating a Bratwurst in Aachen

It's so good to be home and being really daft with my brother and sisters. Everyone I talk to thinks my family are bats, and that we have the craziest stories every! Anyways as the my brother and sisters are back I have being swaying away from my negotiated project! On Saturday I went to the German Market in Aachen which was good fun and we also popped into the Lindt factory store ... NOMNOM! However, today I hopped back down to the basement and went with a new P.O.A!

THE SPACE - Arts Council

So my painting is not going well, I have had to paint out my brother's nose as I am so annoyed with it and I just went down to the basement to have a peek at it and now I don't like the hair. BREATHE.

Anyways this post isn't really about my negotiated project ... its about something really exciting called 'The Space' click here for the website. Have you looked at it, do you know what it is? Well you should!  The Space is an interactive, exciting, innovate and free way to experience the Arts for free! You can watch upcoming art events, browse through rare archives, watch live performances ... all on your computer or laptop or T.V or tablet or phone! It's a joint venture developed by Arts Council England in partnership with the BBC. I think it's such a good way to get the Arts easily available to the masses. Think about how many times you haven't gone to the Theatre or seen an exhibition at an art Gallery as you are skint for money, well this is a way to access the Arts or performance you have missed for free. It's an easy way to view our country's vast cultural archive and it is at the heart of how we as individuals use digital technology to perceive art.

I think as a Scenic Artist, what The Space is doing for us but also for other artists, musicians, actors, technologists ... is a great platform to dynamicaly show to our nation what we have to offer. 

For example on the 7th of January The Space will be broadcasting: Royal Opera Live. Starting at 10.30am there will be a live stream for 10 hours of behind the scenes. 21 cameras will be positioned around the ROH, you'll be able to watch what goes on during the day: backstage you can see what  Technical Stage Management are doing, in the pit you can see Antonio Pappano in action and also on the site you'll be able to view Act 3 of Wagner's 'Die Walküre'. Hmmm I wonder if we will see Jude Bomphray (my close friend on my course) behind the scenes as on the 7th of January she is having a tour round the ROH that day! 

Negotiated Project Day 3

Today went pretty well, I worked on my painting for a couple of hours but it's just rather cold down in my basement! I think I must feel the cold really easily - I mean I thought it was cold in the paint shop at SLS (it's not unusual to find me painting near the radiator in there and I'm forever getting told to turn off the radiators so that the heat doesn't warp the wood!) I'm thinking I must look rather odd whilst I paint ...

Negotiated Project Day 2

Well I slept in today - I'm sleeping rather well at the moment ... think it's because panto is over so I'm feeling a big sigh of relief! Anyways I got cracking with the painting of my brother today. I painted down in our basement as we have so much useless space down there and it really is a great space - there's a sink where i can wash my brushes, a huge wall I can pin the canvas on and there are even plug sockets so that I can plug my mac in! However it's extremely cold down there so I was painting wearing my UGG's and my ski hat!

Negotiated Project

Today I successfully manage to find Schleiper on Chaussée de Charleroi and it was the best Art Store I have ever been to! It was absolutely massive (much bigger then Dom Knigi in Moscow) and was a 100x more stocked then any Art store in Glasgow. I picked up quite alot for €60 - canvas, acrylics, paint brushes, 2 pallette knives and a medium to create texture.

Andrew Salgado - Parenthesis

So now I am ready to start painting my next personal project. After browsing for quite a while gawking at Andrew Salgado paintings, I have decided to replicate his painting of the 'Parenthesis' as the portrait actually looks quite scarily like my brother Alastair! I have worked out that I have 6 full days to finish the painting until I leave Belgium on the 28th of December, so I am going to work really hard to meet this deadline!

My brother, Alastair

Back to Brussels

So it's my first day back at home and I went into the centre of Brussels to try pick up some canvas to start another personal project. After traipsing around the city centre in the pouring rain trying to find 'Schleiper' on Zuidstraat- which is a well known Art Store in Belgium, I got to to the shop only to discover in that particular store they don't sell canvas by the meter - There was no way I was going to buy a large mounted canvas board and try manoeuvre that on the busy subway! The man in the store was really nice and spoke English, he told me I could buy canvas by the metre at their Chaussée de Charleroi store, however for some odd reason I thought that was miles away and when I got back home I discovered it was just around the corner!

Anyways, rant over - I shall be going back into the centre of Brussels tomorrow to buy myself some canvas! I really want to fire out another personal project this week whilst I'm at home, as the personal project I am working on at the moment is taking so long. I follow a good blog/site called This Is Colossal  (website) and I came across an amazing portrait artist, Andrew Salgado (website). Portraiture is probably  one of my favourite types of Art, as you can be in awe of a painting and not even know who the person is in the painting, they could have some connection with you and you might not even know it. So I have decided to paint my younger brother Alastair  in the style of Salgado. Hopefully this will help me to become more expressive and free in my style of painting as to be honest I am such a perfectionist! 

Start of Shakespeare's (Week 11)

So that's Panto finished (woop) and I am so happy to be right at the heart of production work again - that's just getting stuck in and painting painting painting!

Negotiated Project

ahsjdflkahsjkldfhla - Why am I so slow at painting at times?! I really, really, really wanted to be finished on my personal project by the end of this term but realistically that's not going to happen. I really pushed myself with this project - the painting is very detailed and I want to make a really good job of it so that it looks good in portfolio, but also that I can be proud that I have finally finished it. I think Gary may think I'm not trying hard enough with it, but I just haven't had the time to get into the swing of it and I'm finding it hard trying not to paint in a 'fine-art style.' So it looks like I will be coming into SLS during the Xmas holiday to finish it. 

I don't even want to go up close to photo it!

Week 10

Wahooooo panto is all done and dusted and it feels like a huge load off my shoulders! As it was my 21st on the Friday my parents where over to celebrate my Birthday which nicely clashed with the opening night of the Pantomime. As cheesey as it sounds, at the end of panto i actually felt proud about myself (which is a feeling that never usually occurs) - everything went to plan, and that I had actually managed the pantomime rather successfully!

Week 9

Oh deary me! On Tuesday we all met down at Renfrew Street (that is where the main campus of the Conservatoire is and where the production will be held on the New Atheneum Stage) and the first thing I notice when I dropped off my bag in the auditorium ... the Stage Right flown flat didn't match up with the front wall. Urgh, this was annoying as we had used the spray gun to achieve the look of the front wall and there was no way of using this on the stage as the paint would go everywhere!

Look closely in the centre of the 2 joining sides, you'll see that they don't match up!

Anyways this week there has been a lot of sitting around as it was tech rehearsals so the scenic team aren't actually scheduled to be on stage, and therefore there was manic painting at tea breaks and lunch, or any time we could sneak on stage! This week we didn't have Jude on the team :( as she was off painting another panto (which looks amazing btw!) however we still managed to get a lot done without her. We had a paint call on the 27th where we finished painting the main house, started the touch ups inside of the opening tower and doing a lot trompe l'oeil (fake shadows to make 2-D things look 3-D). Annoyingly though - this was mainly my fault as I painted the towers - the towers didn't match the style of the mini turrets, so Rosé and I did the scary job of touching them. Touching up the towers was scary to begin with as the original technique was a wet blend, however and thankfully what ever we did managed to be a hit and the towers looked 100x better!

Throughout the week we got a lot of extra notes everyday, the designer (Robin Peoples) came in on Wednesday and he seemed pretty happy with everything except he wanted more of a shadow on the Centre Stage Village flats which is a pretty big job so we will have to do that at our paint call next week!

The houses sort of look like the are floating ... eep!

Week 8

I am so so happy that I went into SLS (Spiers Lock Studios') during bridge week, I think if I hadn't this week would have been manic!

We had 4 first year Applied Art students with us for a couple of days so all the extra hands helped! This week we had two big tasks:paint the main house and the funny red things which go inside the opening tower. Other tasks this week included painting the triangle treads bright pink, touching up the glitter on the front wall and painting the doors for the 2 Up Stage Towers.


The Funny Red Things!

Lee and the First Years

Independent Learning Week - Week 7

Hmmm independent learning week, the week in the Conservatoire in which all the students have a week off to do what they want, and production work for students cease. Er, well not for me. I knew I could have gone home to Belgium this week, or get cracking on with that perspective painting which is seeming to take me age to do, but as I good devoted manager to the pantomime I decided to come in and work on Beauty and The Beast.

Why did I come in? Well ... I knew that if I didn't come in next week (week 8) would be manic, I already know we have to do two late nights next week in order to get the final piece (the main house) painted and I thought it would be unfair on the team if we were all having kittens trying to get another 2 towers painted as well! I also decided to work on panto this week as being manager I haven't done a lot of the painting, and I miss it, really miss it. I love getting stuck in with production work, just being free and painting things I enjoy, but these past weeks I've been stressed out making sure everyone has a job, and mixing endless amounts of colour!

I got quite a lot of work done, and thankfully some other students helped out. It was great just to paint again, and not need to worry if anyone needed a job. By the end of the week both of the towers got painted! Yay! And I think I defo need a new pair of steelies!

Week 6

Ahhh, week 6! Well to say the least I was having kittens all this week, we were meant to finish all the painting this week as on Friday the van was coming. However, I knew at the start of the week this was unachievable as we still had to: finish all the turrets, paint the front wall (both sides), paint the bridge, finish one of the houses, paint the two towers, paint the main house and paint the headers.

Week 5

This was such a good week, I finally felt like I was getting into the swing of things. Yup, okay construction was a bit behind and I was becoming increasingly more worried about this, but we had lots of extra helping hands from four more Technical First Year students.

Fell of the bandwagon

Why, oh why did I leave it until now to blog? I definitely fell off that bandwagon. Last year I got into such a good routine with blogging, and I am making a vow, right here, right now to get back on track with blogging!

I think I have just been run down, everything is going so fast with panto that the weeks are merging into one and as soon as I get home I just want to hop into bed. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel as the final van run is this coming Thursday ... eep!

Okay so enough of my declaration to get back to blogging, time for some serious blogging to commence!

Hey, don't I look like a fun manager?!

Week 4

Things were starting to get rather hectic this week! We finished the maze, the towers and one of the village scene flats woo! I would have liked some more of the other village scene flats to have been completed this week but as construction are falling a bit behind schedule I decided there was no loin in working late this week.

For a couple of days this past week we had 3 first year technical students in the department. To be honest I was unsure how enthusiastic they would be but it turned out they were so much more willing to give everything 100% compared to the first year applies artists that came in last week!

Things i have found difficult this week is give people direction, I don't want to be harsh or to upset people, but sometimes I'm thinking in my head 'please look at the model, does that look like the model?!' However, things are just following as manager. Still have a few colours to mix but all the next pieces from construction seem pretty straight forward to paint.

Ah eep, the worst thing that happened this week was running out of white paint! Must make sure I'm on top of how much white paint we are using!

Perspective Painting

I've given up for today, my mind is frazzeled and the thought of all the detail in my perspective painting is driving me mad.

I worked for several hours on my painting today, however I feel little has changed and this had left me in a bad mood! I'm finding how to approach my painting extremely hard. Usually when I paint at home I have a palette and mix all my colours on that, but I'm trying to approach my painting in the scenic art way which means having all my colours mixed up! Having all my colour mixed up is annoying, as sometimes I'm like there is the tinnsiet bit of this colour here and small bit of that colour there ... ARGHAJKLS Why did I pick such a hard picture?

Well actually I chose to do this perspective painting as everything I have painted so far has been extremely flat (i.e. all 2D) and I feel this painting will test my limits, so I really want to get it done and be proud that I've pushed myself.

Week 3

This week went so quick! We got the rest of the floor finished, got the flats in from construction and started painting! I would have liked to of worked a little bit quicker, but seeming as this week was meant to be a total write off as we were all originally scheduled in for 3 paint calls down at the main building, I think we made up for it!

Maze Scene

During this term, not only is the Conservatoire putting on the production of Beauty and The Beast, but there also various other shows being put on such as 'Tartuffe' and the 'Importance of being Earnest'  which had paint calls scheduled for this week. As we had four first years coming into the Scenic Department this week I suggested to Gary that he took them down to the paint call with the second years, while us third years stayed up at SLS and worked on panto.

After finishing the floor and priming the flats, Lee, Rose, and Jude got on to drawing up the Village Scene flats ... it took a bit longer then I would have liked due to some mistakes and some people being off, however by Friday it was great to see paint on them.

CSL Village Flat

Perspective Village Flat

Friday was a very stressful and hectic day for me, there were no more paint calls scheduled so I had 9 people (4 of them first years) all needing jobs ... I was having kittens trying to find jobs for everyone. However, I managed to find something for everyone to do. Jude, Rose, and little Rosie started painting the village flats. The first years finished drawing up the palace gates and started painting the maze scene and the sweetie truck. Lee nearly finished painting the US (upstage) Towers and I helped with the maze scene.

Sweetie Truck

Towers

Hopefully by Wednesday next week the village flats and the Maze Scene will be finished, and then we can start painting and drawing up the palace. 

Maze Scene

EEP.... OH MY ONLY 3 WEEKS LEFT OF PAINTING.

Week 2 - Maze

During the second week there was only the need for 4 people to work on the floor at one time, so I had

to find jobs for those who came off the floor for the rest and a job for myself. Other jobs that week included more drawing and more colour mixing - which was all a great plus as this means when we start getting more work in from construction we can start painting straight away!

One of the other jobs I started was the sample of the trees for the 'Maze Scene,' in this scene in the pantomime is where the loved up couples come to light. In the designers model piece, the leaves of the hedges are painted in water colour effect, however Gary (my tutor) asked the designer (Robin Peoples) if we could do the leaves in heart a shape which the designer thought was a great idea. As Rose didn't have a job to do she helped me create 3 sizes of a heart shape stamp. Basically we cut out hearts from a foam sponge, glued it to a piece of wood a created a small handle for each stamp. 

Creating the overall look to the hedges proved much more difficult then I first thought. I had to create 3 dimensional effect using the 3 colours (a bright green, dark green and mid green), eventually after several attempts as well as fixing the original colours  (and lots of helpful advice from Gary) I managed to create a look for the tree that worked. 

Week 2 - the floor

Wahoo! Feeling a lot better about this week, I feel I am settling into my management role, but once again still feel like I'm not doing all of a great job. I guess I'm just uncertain how people are perceiving my managing, I don't want to be like a dictator but at the same time I don't want people to think I have no clue what's going on.

Floor Sample

This week our main task was to get the floor finished (we almost did, just a little more to do on Tuesday!) as it takes up most of the space in paint shop. The annoying thing about the floor was that it was too large to put down as one piece so we i had to do it in four sections. Doing the floor in four sections meant we had to fade the colour out gradually so that when we put the floor together it all came together as one. I mainly let Rose and Jude take charge of the floor as Rose had done the samples, and Jude was all ready confident at using the spray gun after using it a lot on her personal project. Gillian was great and picked up the knack of using the gun quickly, she was also extremely enthusiastic which was great. Rosie also did a great a job and Lee was much more confident at using the gun by the end of the week.

The floor was pretty hard to paint at the beginning, I was convinced there were 4 colours used in the model piece but Gary assured me there was only 3 (blue, light blue and pink) and that the blue and the pink optically mixed together to create the purple colour.

End Of Week 1

At the end of my first week as being head scenic artist on the pantomime I was still feeling overwhelmed. I had a breakdown in my tutorial which was rather embarrassing and I felt I was still not living up to Sarah Crooks who was the head scenic artist on the pantomime last year. I didn't feel I was 100% organised, or new exactly what to do. I found it hard to make sure everyone had a job, knew how and what to draw up. Looking back I wish I had clearly told everyone how to label the back of the flats and I wish I could just be confident to be like 'please work a tad faster!'

Colour Mixing for the floor

During the first week we got a lot of drawing up done, which was a big task achieved as the quicker we drew up the flats - the quicker we would get the flats back from construction to paint. The second years (Rosie and Jillian) did a great job seeming they hadn't done much before! Lee (a fellow third year) was a whiz kid, he's really good at maths and I think his brain works more logically then mine and was drawing up flats like they were going out of fashion. Jude did some drawing up but she along with Rose had the fun and challenging task of mixing up colours! I think Rose found the colour mixing for the floor rather hard, and so did myself. However thankfully by the end of the week we finally got all three colours mixed, and started priming the floor.

Priming the floor!