Touch Ups!

The past two weeks have been touch up, touch up, TOUCH UPS! Working some days from 9am - 9pm when we have had a paint calls, but in between times it has been good to see the dress rehearsals as this has allowed us to see all our hard work come together.

The designer, she is lovely, and has a great vision for the show. Basically, it is set in the 1950s but is all rather dark and sinister, a lot of dark greens, and blacks! However, the amount of touch ups needed to be done and the requests from the designer did certainly mount up. I am just happy though the grouting on all the big flats came seamlessly together and that would have been such a huge job if they didn't line up! All though I had to go up the talescope to paint the Left Down Stage Slider as it looked much lighter then the flat it was next to, which was rather tricky as it was so high up and I couldn't really see properly as of the light.

We spent a lot of our time painting the doors green down in the scene dock, which has been a little hassle to say the least. The process, was easy though prime white, paint green, glaze with gloss. However it was so annoying that they all got made at different times, which put us behind schedule!  We also touched up the wallpaper as the seams where noticeable, the floor as when the traps came up you could see fresh wood and we had to paint a few props: chimney sweeps, the step, the bed.

Working on Opera has sort of blurred into one long continuous week, I can't really remember what went on everyday (aha should have blogged) but doing the same task everyday (the brick walls) - primining, masking, painting, texturing, painting, grouting I felt there wasn't much to blog about.

Opera has also taught me a lot on how to manage people. I had a lot to do with the logistics of the black brick wall as I had come up with the sample, so I had to teach other people the processes of how to achieve the look, and I had to realistically time plan how long it would take us to do all the flats. Its been good to work with a mix of different first years as well, the first group where really enthusiastic which was great but a bit slower then the second group that came in. The second group on the other hand seemed less interested but worked quickly which was fantastic as we thought we would be doing late nights for weeks! I don't know why the first set of first years were more enjoyable to work with, maybe because it was the start of Opera and we were all excited, and maybe because when the second group came in we were beginning to lose the will to live and just wanted the bricks done so this might have rubbed of on them. I think though, the second group were quicker as we had  defiantly got into the swing of things and knew confidently how to do the black brick walls.

Watching the dress rehersals has been good as sadly I wont be able to see the opera. I think the set looks fantastic and even though it looks like we didn't do a lot of work, we know as scenic artist that hours went into it and that we achieved the designers precise, sleek and sophisticated  design.