Wednesday, February 6, 2013

News from the Painting Front

Paintin' away here...

At this point - a week after The Lucky Chance build started, the set is about finished.  And about painted.

I'll be back at the theater at noon though to paint the laaaaaast bits - mainly some trim that was added yesterday evening after I had to stop painting for the day so paint could dry for rehearsal.

There seem to be two methods of scenic painting, or perhaps of scheduling scenic painting.  One way is to build scenery, usually in a scene shop, and to base and finish paint each piece on a paint floor with just touch-up in the theater.  The other way is to assemble the set in the theater space and then to paint the scenery "up."

Image from Wikkimedia Commons HERE © Jorge Royan / http://www.royan.com.ar / CC-BY-SA-3.0

There are advantages to painting scenery down on the floor.  For one thing, more paint methods are possible - like spattering - which needs to be horizontal to work.  You can be messier without worrying about spattering the velvet seats!  All your tools and materials are already there and convenient.  And it's possible to assembly-line the painting and thus speed it.

I love this photo, which shows just how detailed and controlled (yet huge!) scenic painting can be.

I'm having a hard time coming up with advantages to painting "up" and in the theater... except for the obvious one that, if no scene shop or paint floor is available, then painting in the theater is the only choice.

Usually, in order to ensure the set is finished in time, scenic painting at the theater has to start before carpentry is quite finished, building in a certain amount of inevitable delays, confusion, and re-dos.  But for The Lucky Chance - if I'd waited for the carpenters to be done before starting to paint - I'd be starting to paint TODAY.

The Lucky Chance opens in two days, on Friday.  Tickets HERE at Echo Theatre.

Come see!

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