Painting with Beer

Saturday, December 12, 2009

It's been a busy few weeks, and I'm overdue for an update!

The past three weeks we've been studying landscapes, drawing in perspective, and interior-grade faux marbling (in that order).

First: landscapes.

We finished these just before Thanksgiving break.  Rachel assigned me a picture of Mount Ranier and this is my painting (about 6x9 feet).

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  I really enjoyed painting the mountain and trees.  But my foreground grass turned out a bit Disney-ish...I think I went a little overboard with the color, and stayed a little too regulated in it's placement.  But it's a lesson learned :)

The next week was spent on drawing in perspective.  There's a long story that I won't get into here, but it was a difficult week...even besides having to draw in perspective (which I'm starting to actually enjoy).

Needless to say, I was REALLY looking forward to the week after that, where we began to learn how to paint interior-grade marble.  Our previous marbling class was geared towards painting marble for the theatre (i.e. it looks convincing from at least 30 feet away).  This class, however, was for realistic marbling, intended for up-close inspection.

We couldn't help but enjoy ourselves when we started out the week by painting with beer...yes, beer :)  We just mixed dry pigment with the beer, which acts as a binder (and also keeps the surface very flat when dried, since no ridges equals a non-painted look).  It also dries VERY quickly and is easily resoluble, which allows for a lot of manipulation and cool effects.

And just as a note, we're using the word "marble" just as a generic term for all of the different stones (travertine, granite, etc).

Here are a few of my beer-glaze marbles:

The other medium we used was oils.  The last piece above has an oil glaze on top of the beer glazes.  These next pieces are done entirely in oils.

My eyes are buggy from looking at marble.  But it was really fun.

This coming week we'll be working on a project for Harvard's annual "Hasty Pudding" production of "Commie Dearest."  Apparently Harvard University doesn't have any sort of school-sponsored theatre program.  Since 1795 the students have written and produced their own show using an all-male cast, and it has been presented every year since 1844 (the only exceptions during both World Wars).  Naturally, all of the female parts are played by men in drag, and the show tends to be as risque and cheesy as possible, while still remaining "family-friendly."

We'll be painting four drops for them.  This next week we'll be busy translating the designer's renderings to full-scale drawings.  Once we return from Christmas break, we'll start painting.  Should be fun!

And one week from today I'll be in Denver!!  I'm SOOO excited to see friends and family.  Two weeks won't be nearly enough time, but it's going to be great.

Can't wait to see you all!

I'm Back!

After a TERRIBLY long break from the blog, I'm back!  I had some pretty bad computer problems that prevented me from updating.  Long story short, my hard drive died and I thought that I had lost everything.  Thanks to my brother's genius, I was able to recover ALL of my files (and now have everything backed up on an external hard drive).  My computer is still dead, but (once again thanks to my awesome brother) I am temporarily using his laptop until I can get my computer fixed.

So almost a full month later, I can finally update the blog again.  Lots has happened, but I'll just try to hit the major points.

School hasn't slowed down a bit.  We learned marbling and wood-graining for the theatre.  I don't have a picture of the woodgrain, as those projects won't be completed until we do light and shadow next semester.  But here's a shot of my marble piece (about 5x9 feet).

Those of us who were feeling adventurous had the option of trying to book-match the center section (where, in real marble, the stone slab would be split down its center and opened like a book, creating a mirror image pattern in the stone).  So the center section has a book match, which was a bit difficult to paint, but fun to try.

The following week we had a lettering/sign painting seminar.  Much of it concentrated on letter construction, a quick history of letters and fonts, and a lot of practice with the lettering brushes.  The last two days of the week we each made two signs: one logo and one aged sign.  Both had to be painted free-hand with the lettering brushes.

I'm quite happy with the HighHat sign, but wished I had a bit of extra time to add more aging and rust to the Coca-Cola sign.

After that we had a short seminar on drawing in perspective.  It was tedious and a bit difficult, but there are a LOT of nice tricks and shortcuts to drawing in perspective that would have saved me a lot of time if I knew them for past projects!  I don't have any pictures of that stuff, it was mostly practicing exercises from our handouts, etc.

We're currently working on our first official landscape pieces.  The plan is to finish by Tuesday before Thanksgiving break.  Rachel assigned pictures to each of us, and mine is a picture of Mount Ranier, with its reflection in a lake in the foreground.  Quite a pretty picture, so I hope it translates to my drop :)  I'll post pictures of that when it's complete.

Yesterday we had a "faux" Thanksgiving party.  There were about 60 people in the house...it was insane.  The only people I knew were the regulars from the school (about 10 people), the rest were Rachel's friends from all over.  It was definitely a sensory overload, but I'm enjoying the leftover turkey sandwiches, so I'm not complaining.

Other than that, things continue as usual.  No snow yet (knock on wood).  It's still averaging in the 50's, so it's quite nice most days.

One perk of living here is that we all eat really well...but sometimes too well :)  I've never had a bad meal here, and I'm not quite used to eating hearty home-cooked meals every day.  I felt like I was pudging up a little bit, so I've gotten in the habit of taking walks in the morning before class.  I know it's incredibly out of character for me to be waking up over an hour earlier than I need to on a regular basis, but I'm really enjoying the quiet mornings.  And I'm feeling fit again, so I guess it's working.  I wish I could get into running again, but my knees won't have it, so walking it is.

Oh!  And I suppose I should mention one other event recently: I turned 30.  Wow.  Years ago I kind of expected that once I reached 30 I would be traumatized and mourning the passage of my "youth."  But I feel quite the opposite...I'm terribly excited for what my 30's will bring.  My 20's were way too tumultuous, and I'm looking forward to a more stable decade.

Well, I suppose "stable" is relative.  But I finally feel like I'm on a career path that I not only enjoy immensely, but one in which I feel confident in following.

So that's the update for now.  I'll be able to post more regularly again now that I have a working computer.

And in less than a month, I will be in Denver for Christmas.  Can't wait!!!

Guys and Dolls and Pumpkis

Monday, October 26, 2009

A long period of silence necessitates a large update :)  Sorry that it's been a while, but I've been busy!  The biggest project over the past two weeks has been our two drops for Guys and Dolls.  They're being painted for a high school production, but will be kept and put into Cobalt's rental stock after we get them back.  It's amazing how much prep work goes into making these drops.  It's probably about 75% prep work and 25% actual painting.

Both drops started out on craft paper.  Large sections of the paper were taped together to make the appropriate size, then the image was transferred from the Scenic Designer's rendering onto the full-size paper (using grids to aide in drawing it out).  This allows for easier corrections and tweaking before the drawing is finalized and ready to be transferred to the drop.  Then the entire drawing is perforated on the paper and placed on the drop, then a charcoal pounce is used to transfer the image.

All colors are mixed exactly as needed before any painting begins, then all colors are tested on a small test flat to ensure accuracy and allow for any tweaking before any paint is put on the full size drop.

THEN we start painting the drop :)

The first one is the "sewer drop" for the gambling scene (if you've seen the show before).  Sam and I were in charge of the test flat, which I drew out.  (shown above)

We didn't bother drawing the entire thing out for the sake of time, but you get the idea.  Here's the full-size piece (the center arch is made of another piece which will be inserted behind the arch, to allow for actor entrances).

The second drop is the city-scape.  I was in charge of drawing the stage-right buildings (the dark ones) and the "Cafeteria" building.  I painted various different things including all of the brown woodwork, much of the stage-right buildings, and the "Ryan's" signs.

The first picture is the designer's rendering with our drop behind it.

And hard to believe, but Halloween is almost here! So we had a little party on Friday and carved pumpkins.  True to form, I carved a 'special' jack-o-lantern.  He has a bicycle helmet and I named him Ruprecht the Idiot Pumpkin Boy.  His favorite foods are chocolate milk and tater tots...

Haha!  And he's looking sillier as the pumpkin begins to shrivel up.

Other than that, we've been working on our newest drawing assignments (no trees!).  We have to re-draw the specified cartoons on a larger scale only measuring by eye...no rulers, no grids, etc.  So far they're actually pretty fun!  Here's a few of mine:

And that's it!  Other than that, there's not much news. Still no job.  I applied to two more places on Thursday, but no word yet.  Car is still on the fritz, but I'm taking it into the shop on Wednesday and we'll see what they say.

Oh!  I did get to go into the city this weekend.  Tony, Sam and I went to see a ballet (Tony has a connection with the production manager), and then toured around the city for a while.  Luckily Tony really knows his way around, otherwise I would have been lost pretty quick :)  I didn't take my camera because it's too huge, and they wouldn't like me taking it into a show.  But Tony is going to let me have his pictures, so I'll post pics of that next time.

It being my first trip to NYC, I was pretty much in awe.  I loved it and can't wait to go back.  Not sure that I could actually live there, but wouldn't mind it being my "playground" so to speak.  Amy and I are boing going to be stuck here for Thanksgiving, so I'm hoping that we can plan another trip then.

That's all for now!

Playing Catchup

Sunday, October 11, 2009

So technically it's only been 4 days since my last post, but due to my internet snafus, I didn't upload the last post until just now.  So it's a double feature with two posts in one day.  (And in all reality, I won't upload this one until the morning since I don't feel like lugging my computer downstairs right now).

We took a hike yesterday at a nearby "mountain."  It was a little lump of a hill, but we'll let the New Yorkers believe it was a mountain (our little secret).  The weather has been nice and cool but not freezing.  Fall is holding on strong and I'm in no rush for snow, so I'm fine with that!  The colors were awesome and the late afternoon sunlight made for a beautiful combination.

And because Tony's been in "rare" form (actually it's becoming much more common!) I couldn't resist posting a picture of him acting as a gargoyle, perched at the top of the stairs.

And while I'm posting crazy pictures... remember when I went to the local farmer's market and held a snake named Jabba around my neck?  Well, I got the pictures to prove it.  At first I was rather amuse and enjoying the experience....

But then Jabba started to wrap his little head further around my neck.  The snake handler had to remind him of his manners and smacked him gently on the side of the head.  Jabba decided not to strangle me, but my amusement had abruptly ended.

I'm really looking forward to the next two weeks of classes.  We'll be painting two drops for "Guys and Dolls."  I don't remember what company we're doing them for, but I'll post when I find out.  But it will be refreshing to paint something other than trees.

More later, but for now it's off to bed.

Trees, Trees and More Trees

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Tree-mania continues, and this week is the Foliage 1 seminar.  While I feel like I'm slowly getting more comfortable with drawing trees, I'm also realizing more and more how very difficult it is to get them just right.  Here's a few samples of my own work.  Most are very quick sketches (5 minutes or less), the last two I spent an hour or more on.

My eyes are getting blurry from looking at so many trees :)  So I sketched a couple of other things just to clear my head a bit.  The first is a quick thumbnail sketch of the dock at Smallwood Lake, which is just a few minutes South of here; the second is of our fireplace in the main living room/ dining room of the Cobalt house.

Today we started painting trees instead of drawing them (hooray!).  Today's exercise focused on distant trees and one mid-range tree using lay-in brushes and sponge rollers. Rachel makes it look easy, but we all quickly found out how difficult it really is.  My first-day painting is the following (about 4x98 foot), which I'm really not crazy about, but I learned a lot:

The second project took two days, and I was a bit more pleased with this one.  We learned how to make and use stamps and cut-foam rollers for the leaf pattern, making it a cinch to paint all of the leaves (Mom - don't you wish we knew this trick for painting Secret Garden!!).  The first was taken at the end of day one, just to show my workspace:

Also attending this weeks seminar are three guest students, one of whom is a vegetarian.  So we're all expanding our culinary horizons, so to speak, and cooking some new foods.  Monday was my night, so I cooked chicken satay with peanut sauce (for the meatitarians) and Buddha's Jewels, which is a baked tofu dumpling.  Both were quite tasty, if I do say so myself, and it seemed to be a hit with everyone else, so that was fun.

Last week I attempted something new as well: ratatouille.  Jackie's boyfriend, Chad, had a copy of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," so I figured what the heck.  It sucked.  It was definitely edible and not a total disaster, but I won't be making that one again...probably ever.  Probably bad timing on my part that I decided (afterwards) that I didn't really care for the dish.  Oh well!  I suppose it keeps life interesting around here!  Next time it's Mexican food: something that I definitely know how to cook and that I already know I'll like.