It was a beautiful morning in the hill country of Texas. That is until now as it is already reaching up into the 100s at 10 a.m. I thought I'd post/boast about my first set design for the play, Guys & Dolls Jr.!
It was done for a kids theatrical camp which is put on by my good friend Lee Coleé. Lee puts on a "boot camp" for 2 weeks, then the kids perform what they learned for the next 2 weekends. It always amazes me what she can bring out of those young blooming actors! This was the 4th time Lee had asked if I would design her set. Finally succumbed. It was a blast but it set me back in my graphic design business and I've been catching up ever since.
Here is the design. I drew this it pencil. After working with a miniature version of the stage which the previous set designer had built. I scanned it into photoshop and then painted my pencil drawing.
This is a picture of 3 of the 6 other walls, "legs" I designed on the side of the stage. They were painted as a continuation of the abstract buildings. Didn't get a good photos of those finished.
This is the, almost, finished back wall. Made a few changed during the process but it came out almost exactly the way I wanted it to. Still needs chimney smoke and a few more stars. The wall is around 25' wide x 17' high. Painted with latex on muslin. This image is kind of blurry compared to the above digital picture, but my friend Robert Anschutz, took this photo and did an excellent job even though the light was really dark in the unfinished set. The buildings changed color with the lighting during the show. The skyscrapers are more purple and the stars were glass drops I glued on.
It was really fun, but when the show was over the production crew did a thing called "striking' the set which means they tore it down to make ready for the next show. Very alarming for an artist. So I went over to the theater and cut off my favorite parts of the design. I'm going to stretch the pieces and make a triptych cityscape. I'll post it when I'm finished. Ah, the evolution of art...
It took me 2 hours to pull the 3 large pieces of muslin off, that were glued down really, really well onto that wood wall. I had to pulled with all my weight as the production crew watched and laughed! I couldn't move my upper body for the next three days. I sure learned a lot about theater though. So, now that I'm a sucker for the thespians I was roped into helping with the next show, "Stop The World I Want To Get Off". I'm in the process of painting dragons on 2 huge oriental fans and then I and a fellow artist friend will paint the floor of the stage like the Milky Way. I'll post those when done.
Opportunities to paint is an answer to my prayers... even though it's putting me in the poor house! Maybe some day I'll get paid to do set design. Over and out.
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