ALICE IN WONDERLAND - SET DESIGN PART 3 (SPONGES, MURDER, AND CURSED RIGHT ANGLES)

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

ALICE IN WONDERLAND - SET DESIGN PART 2 (TAPING, LADDERS, COFFEE, AND LIPSTICK)

Part 2! (FINALLY) 

I finished the mock up for the second set of panels and I'm pretty proud of the way they turned out. This is meant to be the front doors to the Duchess' house. I wanted hints of Harts to be visible - since the Duchess is such a suck-up to the Queen - but also have it's own unique sense of absurdity. I have spiraling bushes on either side of "bronze" doors with relief-sculpture-style swans facing each other. It'll all be set against gray stone with windows as a border, and a large stained glass window set above the double doors with a large script "D" for Duchess. Unsure about the windows, but I'll probably worry about that later. Approval came in, and I'm going to sketch it out on the canvases and then get back to my Rose Garden.

Taping, painting, peeling, and stepping back.
Rinse. Wash. Repeat until you die.

BACK TO THE GARDEN: I've begun outlining what will be a wrought-iron gate with blue masking tape. I was hoping this would help me paint straight-as-die lines without too much effort, but, as it turned out, masking tape on textured canvas isn't the most secure of seals. The black paint ended up bleeding beneath the glue of the tape just a little. It DID curtail the painting process, but I was forced to go over the lines again freehand and shore up with blurry edges so they're very straight and dramatic. 

While I wait for the gate to dry, I'm sketching out concepts for the Queen's castle. I want it to be very weird and a little bit unnerving, but with very OBVIOUS heart details. I'm pretty happy with it so far. 

Meanwhile, I keep working on the garden itself. The greens are turning out to be absolutely GORGEOUS and I'm really happy with the way the roses turned out. I normally am REALLY BAD at painting flowers (especially with no model to copy), but I found a technique using a large, broad brush, and with just a few deft strokes I managed to make very dramatic roses. 

[I had to keep reminding myself to paint the roses BIG because, being that close to the canvas, my instinct was to paint them life-size. Unfortunately, from the audience's perspective, life-sized roses would have been ridiculously lame.]

The days were long, and the nights were longer. I pulled several all-nighters during the painting of the Rose Garden scene. As is evident from the images below, however, inspiration of multiple forms was necessary to maintain my creativity. (see "LIQUID CREATIVITY") I became the Queen of Hearts and made sure to holler cruelly at myself when I did not paint my roses properly. (Not really. I am relatively sane. I think.)

That is my coffee. Mine. It bears my seal. 

I'm excited to keep working, and I'll post the next part of this AMAZING painting process real soon!

-Chimmy

ALICE IN WONDERLAND - SET DESIGN PART 1 (DRAFTING AND PRIMING)

For a drama production this spring, I was asked to paint the sets. I could barely contain my excitement when I found they were doing Alice in Wonderland (one of my favorite stories). I knew it was going to be a rough task because I'd worked on the same sets the year before for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (another favorite of mine), and was familiar with the construction design. 

Six flats, each one roughly 8x4.5 feet, two flats for each scene.  

I was ecstatic!  

Mixing up some of my home made primer, and downing my
mojo juice (a.k.a. COFFEE).

The director dropped four of them off at my house. One of the drama students had already started and decided the project wasn't for them. The scrawny little attempted rose bush was killing my mojo, so I had to set them up and prime over the offending image as quickly as I could. Next, I drew up the draft for the scene, and when approval came back, I jumped right in.      

Queen's Garden Draft

When it comes to set design, I prefer to work in the basic colors.  This makes buying paints a heck of a lot easier, because if I run out and can't buy it myself, it's a simple matter of asking for "red" rather than "bright scarlet" or "midnight poppy."  (And no, lipsticks are not the only things to get weird color names.)

The only downside to this is that, if you mix a very specific color, you'd better paint EVERYTHING that uses that color, or risk not being able to mix the same tone after it dries. 

For the Queen of Hearts' Rose Garden scene, I mixed original green tones, but because I was painting bushes, it was alright that the tone kept changing.  It allowed for the foliage to have a more organic look, rather than it all being just one or two shades of green.

Gonna wait for this to dry.  Meanwhile, I'm going to start sketching a draft for the second scene and have that done for when this scene is finished.  


This is going to be the best next few months!!

-Chimmy