Merry Wives of Windsor on Stage

So that's the final big show of the year finished. Man it was a huge show to fit in a small schedule of 4 weeks. There has many arguments, tears and laughs but thankfully it looks amazing! I think last years opera design of 'Magic Flute' was a bit more striking, but I feel we have executed this design to a higher standard

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

Merry Wives of Windsor

So my next disaster was wallpapering the Second Angled wall. I had another challenge to face because there was two walls it meant my wall paper had to match up with the first wall. Once again I had to use maths and it took for ages. However, once Rosé and I did all the problem solving the wall papering went really quick and the overall finish to the walls ended up looking fab.

The Gauze

Well I have to admit that I have been very lazy for not blogging all through the production of Merry Wives of Windsor which is the summer Opera for this year. Cordelia Chisholm is the designer again, I love her designs they are so beautiful and elegant (she is also from Motley!) So I'm going to make up for it now!

Realism in Theatre and Opera

Realism in theatre was a general movement during the 19^th century, which aimed to show ordinary life on sage through text and performances. It was similar to the ‘naturalism’ movement and focused on everyday drama, normal speech, and mundane settings.

The Juilliard School New York

Hello from New York! As part of my course I needed to find work experience for 2 weeks in a professional environment, so I contacted The Juilliard School in NYC. I've always thought of it as an amazing place, it's situated in the Lincoln Centre - surrounded by the heart of the Performing Arts of the city.  My first (very cold week -10!) has been amazing! Getting out here was a bit of a nightmare though ... I can't believe British aviation can't function in a flurry of snow ... not to mention everyone knew we where expecting snow last Friday! Anyways I arrived in New York a day late (yup I slept in Heathrow on a cold floor!) and had no luggage (yup BA managed to loose my luggage for 3days!)

On Monday, bright eyed and bushy tailed I made my way from Port Washington to the big City of New York. I was so nervous to say the least, I still couldn't/can't believe Im in New York helping to paint the sets for Juilliard!

Juilliard is massive! Their paint shop is similar to ours, but they don't have a frame, and not going to lie I feel the organisation in their department is second to none! There are two professional interns, David and Rachel, who are super nice. Then there is the Charge Scenic Artist Jenny, and her assistant Emily who both made me feel very welcomed! There where also some freelancers helping paint this week - Claire, Nick and Hunter, all who are very talented!

I was so so so nervous, especially on my first two days, I was so scared of making mistakes that I painted so slow, and then as I was so worked up I kept on doing daft things like painting a straight line super wonky. Lets just say it wasn't my finest scenic art work. By the middle of the week I became much more confident and started to relax, I really started to push myself to speed up when painting and tried to strop thinking 'they are probably judging me!'

The Paint Shop

Currently at Juilliard they have been working on the opera 'Don Pasquale'.  It's been the first time I've seen a model box where the majority of the model pieces have been photoshoped, I've always been used to models that are hand-painted. The design is lovely though, and I have been working on the portals (they mask the wings), under direction from Hunter. We have been painted them look metallic and 3-D. It's been great learning new techniques such as using textured rollers in a new way and gold leaf (at RCS we don't tend to use gold leaf as it's rather expensive).

A section of the portals

On Friday I had bit of a change from the portals and got to work alongside Rachel and David on some black and white stripy flats. Working on this task I learnt a lot, as at RCS we usually paint straight onto the wooden flats, or if we have a larger budget we will paint on flats that have a framed canvas. However, at Juillard they paint on muslin which is primed with a 1:1 ratio of white latex and water, then sprayed with a starch solution which gives the flat a nicer and sharper finish. Anyways, I got the task of priming them, man I found it hard work and got two nasty blisters!

I've also learnt a lot of basic things that will come in handy when I'm back in the UK. Normally we just wash our brushes in water, but at Juilliard they wash them with Murphy's oil or soap. They never leave brushes in water over break as the water reacts with the binder in the ferrule. Housekeeping is done thoroughly, we usually just wash out buckets until they look good enough, but at Juilliard they wash them until they are pristine. I'm also getting to grips with the imperial system (hello inches). And finally maybe a Purdy brush shouldn't  always be my first brush of choice, at Juilliard they use a lot of Chip Brushes - we usually use those when using substances like using meths or glue!

Look at the organisation!

For improvement for myself as a Scenic Artist, I've realised that I really need to get quicker at painting. I feel I am good at drawing up model pieces, but I think I should start going to evening drawing classes to get even better, and seeing how much at Juilliard they paint on the floor, I now want to do a personal project of a landscape on the floor, painting with a fitch (a small sash brush) on a stick.

It's been a great first week, and I can't wait for next week to do it all again! I really want to move out here next year, I just have to keep working hard and hopefully I can create my own luck and make my dream into reality.

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.

More Bricks

At the start of this term things weren't very busy as we hadn't received much from construction to start painting. However, the build for the opera 'Magic Flute' is now in full swing. We have began late nights and next week we will also being doing Saturdays to plough through the thousands (no exaggeration there) of bricks to be painted.

We finished the floor!

Woo, we finished the floor for the opera magic flute! It's meant to look like 1950's linoleum and a bit grotty and i think we managed to achieve that look! I did get a bit frustrated at times when painting in those black squares, as sometimes my line would get a bit wobbly and then this meant going over the creamy/white squares again! HOWEVER, the designer doesn't think the floor is yellow enough but it looks just like the model piece ... hmmmm, i hope she likes it when she comes to the workshop to have a look!

Magic Flute - Bricks

Gosh, its only been one day of texturing a large six and half metre wall but man was it hard work and a lots of maths for someone who thought she would never need to do maths after standard grade! Basically, for magic flute the designer wants the majority of the walls to be textured bricks. Stole this picture from Jude and this gives you an idea of what we are doing, this is the first stage - texturing with idenden ... only another 21 flats to do ... that 16, 632 bricks (good maths Bomph-Dog)

Magic Flute - Week 1!

Ah its so nice to be back in the Scenic Department where everyone is ready get stuck into production work. It looks like we have a busy six weeks ahead with like 5 shows to paint eep and because the 3rd years are now all going on their work experience us second years are taking a big step up in our scenic art roles!

The fist production we are working on is 'Magic Flute', the design looks great - nothing tacky or grimmy, just a classic high finished design. We finished the stage floor on Friday (well it might need another gloss coat actually on monday) but i think it looks rather good - its meant to look 1950s linoleum.

(PICTURE TO COME - i stupidly left  my SD card in belgium)