PART 3!!! I made it and I'm so proud to have FINALLY finished blogging this project. It's taken my a RIDICULOUS mount of time to collect all my photos and get up the creativity and put in the effort to finish a project, but I AM DETERMINED!
So, I finally finished the Queen of Hearts' Rose Garden, and I'm not gonna lie, it's my pride and joy. (And if you look closely, you'll notice that the Queen's castle in the background looks vaguely like little heads with pointy hats...a little bit of weird I threw in for my own amusement.)
Also, I did an orange-pink sky since, according to the book, it is always 6 o' clock, and therefore, the world is in a perpetual state of evening. I pictured that time just around sunset, so I decided not to do a blue sky. It gave the garden a very surreal look, and made it less cartoony, and more mysterious. I doubt anyone will catch the 6 o' clock reference, but it made me happy, so...
It really turned out so fantastic and far better than I could have imagined. It wasn't without heartache and tears and, as seen on the right, a little bit of bloodshed (painting roses is murder), but it really was a truly magnificent experience and challenge, and I will always be very proud of it. (I may even ask the director afterward if I can keep the canvases after the production...we'll see.)
Anyhow, with the Rose Garden finished, it was time to get cracking on the Duchess' Doors. I knew those would pose their own challenges and their own set of delights.
With the doors, I had to go ahead and lay down the base color, which was the gray stone background. At this point, I had already decided to redesign the windows, and rather than doing the four diamonds with the large stained-glass "D", I went with the idea to have three circular stained-glass windows set above the doors. I decided to go with the Space card suit as a design to fix into the stained glass windows. 
I started with the bushes, since I figured those would be the most difficult.(I was wrong, by the way. The most difficult part of this scene ended up being the doors themselves. CURSE GEOMETRIC SHAPES AND RIGHT ANGLES!)
For the bushes I layered four or fie different shades of green using a sea sponge to get that grainy texture, which I would never have been able to duplicate using a regular paint brush. Assume, by this point, I am covered entirely in green paint, from head to toe. It was not an attractive look.
From there, I moved on to the stained glass. After the bushes - which ended up being far easier than I expected - I was sure the stained glass would prove to be the most difficult aspect of this scene, since I'd never attempted to paint anything resembling glass. (Again, I was wrong. Because CURSE GEOMETRIC SHAPES AND RIGHT ANGLES!)
Anyhow, while the stained-glass circles were made up ENTIRELY of shapes, it was a breeze to paint due to their size. Small shapes are forgiving. What was not going to be forgiving were two enormous yellow rectangles which ANYONE with ANY sense of visual judgement would, within MOMENTS of viewing the scene, would, with GREAT EASE, be able to spot ANY AND ALL MISTAKES I WOULD MAKE. Large yellow rectangles are not kind. CURSE. ALL. RIGHT. ANGLE. SHAPES. 
(amen)
As it turned out, it wasn't quite the nightmare I expected it to be - though it was quite a challenge. The swans were quite difficult to paint since they had to be exact mirrors of each other, and I'm not very good at replicated my own work. However, the scene turned out to be a huge success, and i was very happy with it. 
Oddly enough, the bush pots ended up being rather difficult as well, since they needed to be simultaneously cartoon-ish, and three-dimensional.
Overall, I was very happy with the scenes, and I hope I get another chance to work set-design in the near future. And maybe that time will not require painting large, unforgiving, geometric shapes...I can always hope...*fingers crossed*
-Chimmy
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