Oil and Opera

There hasn't been much production work this week - just the odd bits and bobs to do for Merry Wives of Windsor and Victory. Therefore we were able to do personal projects in the free time we had.

Bo Barlett, Self Portrait 1996

I decided to start painting a portrait that Gary has asked me to do for a leaving present. It is a self portrait by an american artist called Bo Barlett. As I have never worked with oil paints I thought I would try and use them to challenge myself.

Under Layer done in Acrylics

I was pretty nervous when I started to use the oil paints at first, however I am really enjoying them and much prefer them to acrylics. They give a nicer high quality finish, blend really easily and if you make a mistake it's much more forgiving then acrylics as it takes forever to try. I've only worked on it for two days so still have a bit to go!

Stage I am at so far

We also had a paintcall on Friday nights, we got a lot done but there was a few things in the list we didn't manage to do. I have to say the set looks pretty amazing, I think it is one of my favourite designs I have worked on during my 3 years at RCS.

Merry Wives of Windsor

Carousel and Painting

It has been a funny old week to say the least - it went awfully quick! There hasn't been much to do this week for the Musical Theatre Production - Carousel.  We spent some time making things look a bit more distressed, like the huts, and carried on with the textured floor. As there wasn't much to do we were able to get on with our personal project and wahoo I finished the painting for Andrea.

Man, on Friday it was a bit hectic, I had asked construction last week if they would make me a frame and they were like sure, i asked again if they were on it and they were like yup, and then on Friday I was getting rather worried that I wouldn't have a frame on time so I was like I'll make if you want - but everyone knows i'm not very good with the machines. However, thankfully I got a frame at 12. I originally glazed my painting in matt, however it really didn't do anything, so I glazed it using gloss - but that didn't do much either! So I had to use the mega gloss (it's really expensive) Then Gary wasn't sure about the white things at the top, so we had to dull them down a bit - tbh I think it looked better with the white bits there!

Bridge Week

I could have been lazy, stayed at home and have nice long lie ins, go out with my friends at night and not need to worry about getting up at 7 to go into uni everyday this week. However, the reality is that I finish uni in 12 weeks. 12 WEEKS! So despite my lazy self wanting to have a nice relaxing week, I know I have bigger fish to fry and that is to get my portfolio up to scratch!

I was fortunate to be chosen to do a painting of Patty Pravo album cover 'Occulte Persuasion'  for Gary's friend. So during my bridge week I thought I would tackle the painting.

My brief for the painting was to make the pink less vibrant and the yellow less acidic, and the writing to say 'giura, solo un po'. On Monday I went in feeling good about starting the painting despite being a bit jet lagged. However, I really don't think I was in the right frame of mind. I really don't know what was up with me on Monday and Tuesday - I just wasn't thinking straight and I was definitely not painting straight either. Gary even said my first attempt at the painting was a 'dogs dinner' which is probably very true! I think because Jude was stressing out, the fact that there is 12 weeks left of term I just went crazy and got really nervous that I wasn't good at painting!

However, on Wednesday I pulled myself together and made a logical plan on how to go about painting this picture. Instead of painting in upright on the frame, I got a new canvas and painted the background on the floor using a water technique, and then after the background had dried I popped it back on the frame to tackle the face. Hopefully I will be finished by Monday!

Queen's Birthday Party - NATO, Brussels

I have been very lucky to have been asked by NATO Headquarters in Brussels to do two paintings for their annual Queen's Birthday Party. So when ever I have had a night off from production work, or a spare moment here and there, I have been painting a portrait of the Queen. I have been working from the official canadian portrait of the Queen which was taken in 2002 as I feel it shows her in all her glory, however instead of the original background I felt it would look more patriotic if I had the Union Jack behind her.

Long Productive Day

Yestreday started off a bit slow, there wasn't any work for us to paint again so I went back on my personal project for about an hour, and i just can't wait to be finished - all i need to do it finish off Erich Honecker's  (the man on the right) forehead and chin. 

The rest of the day went really well but it was so long as we stayed late but thankfully we got so much done and which meant we didn't need to stay late tonight or come in tomorrow! Lots of people helped out with the UV painting, I was offered a chance to do it but I was having so much trouble with painting the legs for the pyramid I just wanted to get them done and I had done some UV painting before in props so I just carried on painting away.

Personal Project nearly finished!

I woke up today feeling so ill, blocked nose, sore ears, croaky throat ...  I went into uni thinking this was going to be a terrible day, but y'know just powering through made me feel so much better. Today we were back on our personal projects and okay it may not look that I have done much, but I feel I'm nearly finished my personal project. I just have to:

Fix the lettering
Fix Erich Honecker's sking tone
Fix the suits

A bit of a bummer that we were back on personal projects today as there wasn't anything for us to paint today, I feel this has been a bit annoying throughout the production as I think our momentum keeps on dipping and it just means we are going to have to work so so so hard up until monday night

Personal Project Day 3

I'm quite pleased with my progress so far on my painting of the 'Bruderkuss,' I feel I got a lot done today but I'm not sure if I should have got further? Still need to sort of Erich Honecker's skin tone - it isn't looking to fabby ... he looks a bit anemic!
However, that's me finished on my personal project until panto is over as tomorrow we get the Palace Window Flats - wooo! So I will update on my personal project after the panto.

Personal Project Day 2

I didn't really get as far as I would have like today, would have really have liked have got most definition in at least one of the leaders, but heyho thats how the cookie crumbles and I will have to pick up the pace tomorrow. I got told I wasn't using a big enough brush so will definitely use bigger then a 1inch tomorrow as I have to get used to working on a big scale. I don't think my colour mixing was that great today, so need to spend a little more time making sure I get the right tones! Aim for tomorrow: get a least Erich Honecker completely finished and get Leonid Brezhnev skin tone started!

Berlin Wall Personal Project

Getting really into my personal project. I'm really happy i decided to work big as it allows me to be free and as Gary always says 'you're less likely to see a mistake on a much larger scale.'


The only problem I am facing so far is my technique, in my reference the black suits look really flat but I feel having more brush strokes in the black gives it more character ... so I am in a bit of pickle because I keep on doing both! Also I'm putting too much paint on my paint brush and this is causing dribbles all over my work - silly Saz!

So here is my progress so far:

initial charcoal sketch 

inking in and putting the background colour in

end of the day!

A step backwards

Wahoo we finished the throne! I'm rather pleased with the overall finish, even though in the photo you can't really see the stone texture that Sophie and I created by rolling crushed up newsprint across it.

Oh dear just when we were just getting into the swing of things, picking up the pace and really getting into the panto we've had to take a step backwards instead of a step forward :( Why I hear you cry? Well there is just not enough stuff for us to paint, and now construction have to spend all there time making the largest flat (the palace scene) so we have nothing to do up until Thursday :( As a result we have been allowed to start some personal projects. I have decided to paint a section of the Berlin Wall, 'Bruderkiss' - the famous painting by Russian Artist, Dmitri Vrubel depicts the iconic image of East Germany's Leader Erich Honecker and the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sharing a kiss. I choose this as I want to get better at drawing on a larger scale, I like how its rather controversial and I think I'll be able to execute some good scenic art skills in this piece.

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]