Paint Elevations

Now, please make allowances, Dear Reader.  This image is a translation from a PDF of a scan of the original acrylic paint, colored pencil, and photocopied original (and who knows what your monitor is doing to it!).  But under all that distortion is an example of a set designer's paint elevation to instruct the scenic painter.  In this case, it's a black and white and mostly gray rendering for Pegasus Theatre's B&W show, The Frequency of Death.

Not only have I been drafting and designing in absentia, but painting too.  Splashy fun!  Trying not to get paint on someone else's carpet and walls.  (Oops - just scratched a fleck of gray off a window blind.  Ahem.)

The Frequency of Death, Pegasus Theatre, set design copyrighted Clare Floyd DeVries 2011

The fastest way to do a paint elevation is to photocopy a drawing, then tint it.  1/2" = 1'-0" scale is the smallest you'd want to bother with.  This is a simple version, just meant as a painter's go-by - knowing that I'll be around to talk with the painter - but paint renderings can be works of art in their own right.

BTW  Seven in One Blow opened last night!  Fun for the whole family!  Circle Theatre, Fort Worth.  Spend the day in Cowtown and see a holiday show!

Seven in One Blow Opens November 17th!

At Circle Theatre in Fort Worth, a very funny, family-friendly holiday show:

Fun With Construction Drawings

Here's a little tidbit from today's drafting - a Royal Ensign (a flag, more or less) for the royalty of Seven in One Blow: or the Brave Little Kid that starts building Monday at Circle Theatre in Fort Worth:

Design copyrighted Clare Floyd DeVries

This show should be a heck of a lot of fun!  

(The goofy squirrels BTW are authentically armorial.  Can you imagine a knight riding into battle bearing his Dreaded Squirrels Shield?  It's right up there with Monty Python's rabbit from The Holy Grail for sheer terror, right?)

Set Designer's Day - Reading Scripts

An important - Critical! - part of a set designer's work is Reading the Script.

It's the basis for the entire production.

At the moment I have several scripts for future shows backlogged on the corner of my board (The Official READ THIS! Pile).  Eventually I get to feeling guilty enough and do, in fact, read them.

A designer reads a text in a strange way.  I like to read the play the first time as if reading a novel just for fun: following the plot, enjoying the talk, feeling the mood.  The second reading is for practicalities: doors, windows, intently looking for requirements (and problems) I'll need to meet with my set on this particular stage.

Then I like to let it rest at the back of my mind for a while - percolating - until it's time to design.

On top of my READ THIS! pile (printed out specially for this weekend when I intend to READ THESE!) is Seven in One Blow, an English style panto for Circle Theatre and Christmas.  I'm a little late starting this.  Just under that is Anne Frank for WaterTower Theatre.

Two scripts a little different in... um, every possible way.