Set Painting

This was the part I had been an exciting few days I have been looking forward to for a long time not only as it means the set is nearly complete and ready to be used but also as it will really bring the design to life, especially with our professional help! There was a lot to do in the time allowed which worried me at first but we pulled together and managed to do it.

The Proscenium Arch

The carved styrofoam by Ellen to recreate water texture created with bread knives  -  a long and  hard task!

Carving the curved out edges of the styrofoam edge.

My job to plot out where the printed text will go and the shapes as well as how to fill this negative space created  where the extra section to make the pulley has been added.

Base coat added and iron in position to dictate what needs painting.

View of the whole Prosc after day 1 of set painting, base coats on floor have also been added ready for detailing tomorrow.

Floor planks after one level of stain and Prosc flooring after day  1.

Carved pieces are painted with Idendem to enhance texture and ready them for painting tomorrow. They were put in the smaller room with the heater to help them dry as it is so cold in the studio space.

Idendem texture close up looks very much like my  set model.

Day 2 - Excerpts of text that were trimmed from other section re-used here. Black against rusted edge of iron looks really good. The black distorts the iron shape making it look more cubist.

Touching up sections with polyfiller also used to smooth out joins  in carving once stuck down with no nails.

Debs made a stencil based on the shapes in my model to create the cubist Autumn leaves. She loved my colour  use here which I was very complimented by!

My task of the morning was to collage the other bits of text so they had some time to dry prior to painting. I wanted to use every bit possible without waste.

Making sure the collage pieces meet at the join so it won't be visible when set is assembled.

Top section fully collaged ready for paint and stenciling complete.

Music notes and boarding to be added on once set is assembled as it crosses the join. I hope this will also help to disguise it.

Chevrons to fill in added section and beautifully painted musical notes.

Debs doing her thing.

Masking tape to recreate my design made with masking fluid. The colours are perfect and it looks just like my model - possibly my favourite part of decoration.

Pros almost complete!

Brick detailing added in white.

Tree structure connects iron to the rest of the decoration and relates to devastated trees of WWI

Water texture beautifully painted and spattered with white.

The whole pros was sprayed with a fine brown to knock the colour and prevent it being too harsh and looking more subtle like my design.

Completed painting after day 2! Looking simply stunning thanks to Debs.

Pallets, Boxes and Planks... oh my!

Wooden planks after first red toned wash of emulsion.

Pallets after 2 washes, stencils and spatters to be added. The darker stain over the top really adds to their aged quality .

Cut iron to the right height, will look great with floorboards

Painted box with planking different to my design - this was done to help the actors to move the block as they could then lift them by the horizontal strips. When arranged together with vertical and horizontal strips I think it will look quite cubist  as they are all geometric yet not identical.

Planked box prior to painting. Thinner strips of wood have been used than planned as the other wood made th blocks far too heavy to move around where as these don't add too much extra weight. I quite like how with the thinner wood the planking in enhanced by the larger black gaps.

Wooden planks after second set of darker staining which look a great colour.

Pallets after stencilling, I had them in the correct arrangement when I did this to make sure I didn't make a mistake.

Taller box to act as the Narrator's table needed a few more washes as it began white but had a lovely texture by the final coat.

Painted pallets for the back of the stage.

Pallets when spattering in emulsion has been added to look like spattered mud. I made sure I got in the gaps of the pallets so it looked like the mud had spattered their inside too.

Flooring for Proscenium stage

Initial coat which appeared very orange

Wood grain texture added by Debs special tool which gave amazingly realistic grain affect. They are very uniform at the moment and needed a cubist edge.

Collage sections added from remains of Prosc decoration.

Once text had been aged with stone colour to match pros and the pallets are more defined. The colour variation was better but I wanted more greens and texture as seen in my model.

Final pallet paint which seems very bold but from a distance and at an angle will look great. Really represents my design well especially now more angles, irregularities and shortened planks have been added. 

Final touches in black edging

Chairs

Calico was used to cover their fabric so we had a neutral base and they all relate to each other.

This was painted into with a dry brush in stone, grey and a reddier brown colours for a worn look. Ellen and I did this and we concentrated on the parts of the seat that get the greatest wear for an authentic look. This particular chair we didn't age the wood as it already looked the part.

Chairs all completed after painting and sanding, they look great as they relate to the restricted Prosc colour scheme  and have an antique feel as well as being varied but not too much so to maintain the look of my design.

We also dry brushed the tall stools to tie them into the overall colour scheme.

Chairs prior to work and blank calico seat which was stapled on over the exisiting fabric.

Extras...

Ellen and I measured the correct curtain length and roughed up the hem before adding mud spatters and dips with the emulsion. We used 2 different colours so it wasn't flat colour and the overall look was just as I wanted. We distressed the hem further and scrunched it up to make it look like an old strung up sheet readily cut to size for its new purpose.

Sign post made by Richard with added tones of white over the wood stain.

Door which I used to replace the piece of cabinet in my model as it has a similar form

Worked into with black to enhance it's shape and depth. 

Reflection: It is amazing looking at how similar this is to my model it is really bizarre seeing it this size. Although we managed to complete on time the task was made difficult by a few factors; the studio although very large and handy in that everything could be laid out to work on at once it's temperature meant that it not only took paint/ wall paper paste a lot longer to dry, slowing our work, but also meant there were limits to how long you could work before your hands were too cold however wrapped up we were! What's more it' location in Poole meant it was difficult to get helpers over who couldn't drive as I couldn't and Amber was the only person driving over. This wasn't helped either by up and coming deadlines so my requests for help were answered by few. Those who did help however were excellent and really brought the paint along with their hard work, Ellen particularly carving the styrofoam which was a big job. Another factor that delayed out work slightly was Amber being ill, leaving the boxes unfinished as she had to go home, luckily John and some of stage management came later on to complete these on time. These are things that I cannot really improve upon as they were coincidental with the time allowed but it always something to be wary of. I had a great time seeing Debs paint and learnt a lot in perfecting my technique and how to do things in minimum time/effort to create the maximum/ most dramatic effect possible. It was wonderful seeing it finally look complete.