Cobalt Studios: Summer Scene Painting #8

Cobalt Studios

Drapery Project
At Cobalt, as I have said a few times before, there was no wasted time.  Each time we finished a project, we'd set up a new project.  We would stretch muslin over our flats and have to size them with starch.  While we were waiting for the starch to dry, Rachel or Kimb would teach us something else.  On one of those occasions we learned about painting drapery.

Of all the things I painted at Cobalt, I think my drapery assignment was my least successful.  If I had to choose one project that I liked the least (not because of the teachings or anything the teachers did) I would choose the drapery project.  I performed the least well on that one.  I had one unteachable moment at the beginning of the project and it served to sabotage me all the way through.  I try to be teachable all the time.  Once in awhile I mess up, though and the drapery project was one of those times.  Consequently I had to learn the hard way on this project.

But since I learned things on this project and I am not afraid to admit when I've made a mistake I have decided to blog about it anyway.

Step One:  Base Coat and Cartooning
This was one of those quick projects in between other projects, and we were told to take a flat that was 2' x 3' and choose two colors from the paint corral and scumble them together.  I chose purple and yellow.  The paint corral was a collection of all the extra paint we had mixed up until that time.  When we would finish a project, instead of throwing away all that paint, we capped it and put it in the paint corral.  Then it was fair game for anyone to use from that time on.  It saved a great deal of time in paint mixing.  No sense mixing a new color when the color we wanted was already mixed.

I chose purple and yellow, complementary colors.  Other people were choosing blue and light blue, or blue and green, colors that were analogous or related to each other in some way.  Kimb questioned me about my color choice and I think was giving me the opportunity to make a switch, but I went ahead and did it anyway.  This was my one unteachable moment while at Cobalt Studios.

At this point, we didn't know what we were painting, we had just been told to scumble two colors together.  Then we found out.  We were painting drapery, but not just any drapery, embroidered drapery.  Even though I made a poor decision at the beginning of this project, I still learned the principles and when I have to paint drapery like this again, I will have a much better outcome.

Rachel showed us a photo of drapery that she had put through photoshop and had abstracted it into color blocks that represented local color, shade, shadow and highlight.  With charcoal on a bamboo, she then cartooned out the big shapes on her demo piece.  She suggested that with drapery, she usually cartooned it upside down because she was more successful on drapery when she approached it in the abstract shapes upside down than she did when she painted it right side up. I followed suit.

Ugly scumble of purple and yellow and charcoal cartooning

Step #2:  Stenciling
Next we were shown the collection of stencils and asked to find a stencil with an all over pattern but one with recognizable shapes within that pattern.  Rachel then taught us how to stencil specific to this project.  With wallpaper, it's important to meet edges and to be careful where the repeats go.  On embroidered drapery, however, it's important for the stencil to follow the curves.  We worked on one fold at a time with the stencil, making sure the recognizable shape was visible here and there.

I was not having a good color day and I chose brown for my stencil color.  Another poor choice.  That's the thing about choices.  A poor choice is still a choice.

Ugly brown stencil on an ugly purple and yellow scumble

Step #3:  Shade
Rachel then demonstrated how to paint the shade.  Once again, shade is the shadow on a surface caused by the absence of light on that surface while cast shadow is the shadow that is projected off of one surface and onto another.  The shade on this project as on all the other projects was made of burnt umber and ultramarine blue, thinned to transparency with water.

It's important to note that scenic artists keep the paint elevation or other reference material close by when they paint in order to compare and refer to it during the process.

The shade is painted by finding the deepest part of a fold and painting darkest there and bringing it out into a fuzzy line as the shade transitions to the light.  Fuzzy lines are made by painting a brush stroke of clear water on the fuzzy edge before painting with the paint color.  The paint then mixes with the water which dilutes and thins it.  We help a fuzzy line out with a brush just a little.

Rachel painting the shade upside down.  Note the source material next to her work

My project with the shade painted on it

Step #4:  Cast Shadow
Looking at the source material, we were to identify the difference between the shade and the cast shadow.  Whereas shade has a fuzzy edge, cast shadow has a hard edge.  Our cast shadow on this project (on every project) was a mixture of ultramarine blue and velour black, thinned to transparency with water.  In other words, Payne's Grey.

The shadow painting was pretty straightforward.  Where the shadow was on the reference, transfer it to the painting.  Pretty quick.

Shadow added

Step #5:  Hightlight
In the high points of the drapery, where the light would strike it normally, we added highlights.  Highlights are made by taking the predominant local color, and adding the "color of the light".  I had always made my highlights by adding white paint to the local color prior to studying at Cobalt.  Adding the color of light for my highlight was revelatory for me.

Since my predominant color on my piece was an unattractive yellow, I added the amber color of light to my base coat.  Still another example of where my poor choice at the beginning served to make this project less successful than it should have been.

As I looked at everyone else's work on this project, I have to say on this one mine was the weakest, and that was due to my one unteachable moment at the beginning of the project.

Highlight added

I really want to paint this project again, but this time make a better choice at the beginning of it.  I wish I had taken the opportunity Kimb had given me at the beginning to choose better colors.  I'm glad I didn't end my Cobalt experience on this project.

Cobalt Studios: Summer Scene Painting #4

Cobalt Studios

The Cobalt Method
Just a note about the teaching style at Cobalt,  The early projects involved a lot of demonstration.  The teachers would demonstrate and we would copy.  As the time went on, there was less demonstration and more of us having to take what we learned and fill in the blanks.  By the last projects we were mentored through the projects but there was no demonstration.  I thought that was a great teaching method.  It ensured that everyone started out with all the proper information and then there was a certain accountability required to finish.  I liked that a great deal and have incorporated it into my pedagogy.

Weathered Wood
After the basics assignment, we went directly into woodgrain.  We did two projects simultaneously, so we didn't have to wait for dry time.  For the purpose of the blog, though, I'll separate the two in different posts.

We were first shown some photos of old barn wood.  I find there is no substitute for visual reference.  I always encourage my students to have a paintbrush in one hand and the visual reference or the paint elevation in the other.  Typically, when I see scenic artists make mistakes it's when they are painting and the visual reference is somewhere else.  Thirty feet away or so.

Step #1:  Cartooning
Rachel demonstrated this piece.  The first thing we did was take a piece of charcoal in a bamboo pole (which from this point on I will reference only as 'a bamboo') and cartooned the wood planks and the doorway we wished to paint.  Charcoal is notorious for leaving 90% more material on your work than you need to make a mark, so when we were done with this step we flogged off the excess charcoal.  A flogger is made by taking a piece of wood about two feet or two foot, six inches long and adding a bunch of muslin strips to one end.  A flogger is an important tool for the scenic artist.  It's like a magic eraser.  Flogging removes most of the charcoal and leaves only enough to see the lines but not so much that it changes the color of wet paint.

When we had flogged off the work, we then inked the lines with a permanent marker in a bamboo.  We did this freehand without a lining stick.  We used the permanent marker for the very reason people say don't use a permanent marker.  It bleeds through a few layers of paint.  We wanted our indication lines to project through to guide us later.  I've found that there are very few absolutes in the world.  Don't do this....except in certain situations.

Charcoal lines

Flogging

Inked with a blue permanent marker

Step #2:  Base Coat
The base coat is a wet on wet process that goes on quite fast.  We used a grey and a brown as our two colors.  To be fair, the brown was kind of a grey brown.  We laid the first color down in irregular stripes on the door section.  When doing this, it is extremely important to orient your stripes in the direction of the woodgrain.  Vertical stripes for vertical pieces of wood, horizontal stripes for horizontal pieces of wood.  Since this is a wet on wet technique, and you are painting it very quickly, it's okay, in fact it's better for you to paint just outside the lines.  You can clean that up when you paint the next board.

We put the second color down between the stripes of the first color and blended the edges just a little.  Once the door piece was based, we then dragged our brushes along the diagonal piece and the two horizontal pieces to give the proper direction to the boards.  If you do this quick, while the paint is still wet, you don't have to introduce a lot of new paint for this.  Just use what is already there.

First color, irregular stripes

Second color blended, kind of

Door section painted with diagonal and horizontals dragged through

Then we did the same thing for the other boards.  It's like a puzzle.  You have to place the right piece at the right time for it to work properly.  On the piece above, the two horizontal boards that are not yet painted would be first.  If the paint ends up on the vertical board at the left, no big deal because you can clean that up momentarily.  If you paint the vertical one first then you have to paint with much greater care on the two horizontal pieces.  It's important to figure all of that out before you begin painting.  Which piece gets painted first and the order etc...

Base coat complete

Step #3:  Graining
While we were waiting for the paint to dry, we did two things.  First we base coated the other side of our flats for the more refined woodgrain.  Second, we went to the classroom and looked at different kinds of woodgrain, received a handout with illustrations, and then we practiced painting woodgrain on the bogus paper floor.  Bogus paper is an absorbent paper that scenic artists like to lay down beneath their work.  Helps keep everything clean and orderly.  Cobalt was the first time I had ever painted on bogus paper.  It won't be the last.  I really liked painting on the bogus paper.

Rachel then told us to pick out three or four boards on our piece and do different woodgrain techniques on them.

After that, we found old ratty paintbrushes whose bristles were splayed and did a simple drag through the rest of the boards.  It was looking pretty ugly by this point.  My mantra to my students over the years has been, "The last thing you do is the only thing they see."  I have seen students get upset and want to quit on projects at this point because they don't look beautiful.  Many projects have to go through an"ugly duckling phase" before the become beautiful.  But don't worry, this one will get uglier before it gets prettier.

Notice in the images below that the paint has dried lighter than it was when it was wet.  Sometimes paint dries lighter sometimes it dries darker.  I believe this is directly related to whether or not white was mixed into the color.

Graining a few boards

The rest are dragged

Step #4:  Spatter and Drag
As the name would suggest, the next step involves spattering sections of the piece and then dragging with a dry brush through the wet spatter.  This is done in small sections so the paint doesn't dry before it can get smeared.  It is also important to drag along the direction of the board you are painting.  As I mentioned earlier, this project gets uglier before it becomes beautiful.  This step is the paint job at it's ugliest.  The thing about good scenic artists, though is that they can see the end from the beginning.  They know it has to go through this step before it can become beautiful.

Spatter and drag

Step #5:  Details
Since each of these boards are supposed to look like they are sitting on a different plane, it's important to identify which boards set higher than others.  This is designated by writing numbers on boards based on how many inches they set above the base.  The base is given the designation "0".  In this case the door is the lowest point and the vertical boards in the door would be marked "0".  The horizontal boards and the diagonal board on the door would be designated "1" because it is one inch above "0", and so on and so forth.  This is done with charcoal, which will be flogged off later.

Numeric designation

I added charcoal lines around the door just to help me see where my shadows went

Once the designations have been determined, the next step is to add cast shadow.  The cast shadow is made by mixing ultramarine blue and black.  In other words, Payne's Grey.  Using the designations as a guide, we then took a one inch Purdy angled sash brush on a bamboo and painted in our cast shadows.  Notice the shadows that fall across boards that are vertical are jagged on the bottom, because weathered wood ends up having grooves because some of the rings in the tree are harder than others and the softer ones recede as it weathers.

The most important thing to remember when painting shadows and highlights is Light Source.  Where is the light coming from?  Always think about that when doing any of the trompe l'oeil techniques.  The thing that will make your work look either good or amateurish more than anything is how well you understand light source.

We did use straight edges for the shadow work, by the way.  If a board has a designation of "1" and it is adjacent to a board that has a designation of "0", the shadow would be one inch thick.  If, however, a board had a designation of "2" and it was adjacent to a board that had a designation of "0" the shadow would be 2 inches thick.  In other words you have to do math.  It gets tricky when shadowing the door because part of the shadow is two inches thick and the other parts are only one inch thick.  I'll show that on the photos.

When the shadows are dry, the next step is the highlights.  Highlights are made by mixing the local color with whatever color the "light" is supposed to be.  In other words don't just use white paint to make a highlight.  If the color of the light is yellow, then that is your mixing color.  If it is pink or blue then use that.  That being said, it's not inappropriate to lighten your highlight with a little white, so long as you have the color of the light as well.

When painting the highlights, we used a one inch Purdy (from this point on, if I mention a one inch Purdy, it refers to the angled sash brush).  I like highlights that come and go.  They don't necessarily have to be full length to look convincing.  Place highlights on the edge of the board that light would naturally strike it.  In other words, if the light is coming from the left, the leading edge of the board is the left edge and that is where you would highlight.  Shadows are just the opposite.  They flee from the light.

First batch of shadows laid in

Charcoal flogged off at this point

More shadows and highlights.  Notice the shadows on the "Z".  Two inches, then one inch then two then one then two...

Step #6:  The Last Thing
The final bit of detail is the cut line.  For this we used Rosco Velour Black.  Rachel calls it "The Cadillac of Black."  Cast shadow is a transparent shadow that casts from one thing to another.  Velour black is what we used to create voids, such as where the boards end and it's completely dark beyond.  The jagged edge of the bottom of the door, or the space between boards were painted with velour black.  We also used a one inch Purdy to create a cut line right where the shadow begins when it's casting from a higher surface to a lower surface.  Having just a little darker hard line right there brings the whole piece into focus.

Cut line and voids filled in with velour black

The finished piece

This was a rewarding experience.  I enjoyed painting weathered wood.  You have to really see the end from the beginning on this project.  I really liked how Rachel combined techniques to paint not only the weathered wood, but also the trompe l'oeil.  I love the way she has codified the teaching of scenic art.

Cobalt Studios: Summer Scene Painting #1

Cobalt Studios

Summer Scene Painting at Cobalt Studios

Early Experience
I have had the privilege over the years of acquiring some training as a scenic artist and being mentored by some very excellent people in the field.

My first mentor was a designer named Rory Scanlon.  Rory was the first person I ever met who had no conception of his limitations.  To him limitations did not exist and therefore he was magic.  Rory saw potential in everything.  If Rory had never done something before and you asked him if he knew how to do it, his answer was more likely to be, "I don't know, I haven't tried yet," rather than "No."

Rory was a great example to me.  He is also a very good friend to this day.  Rory does not know what he cannot do, therefore he can do anything.  My first real experience with scene painting came with him on Pippin, a show I designed.  I had no clue how to make what was in my head appear at the end of my paintbrush.  Rory showed me how.

Grad School
I was accepted as a grad student at Mankato State University in Minnesota.  The scene design teacher there was a man by the name of Tom Bliese.  Tom was a classically trained and an excellent scenic artist.  I used to watch Tom paint and was amazed at the things he could make a brush do.

I took his scene painting class in the third quarter of my first year in graduate school.  I remember thinking, "This guy knows what I want to know."  So I decided that no matter how strange something was or how far outside my comfort zone it was that I would trust him and believe him.  I was teachable.  Many of the other students complained when he said we needed to put our paintbrushes on the end of a bamboo stick.  I thought, "He knows what I want to know..."  I never complained.  I decided to learn what was being taught.  Because of that, I did pretty well in that class.

First Job
Right out of graduate school, I worked as a scenic art intern at the Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo, New York.  The Studio Arena at that time was a LORT-B house.  It no longer exists because it was a very dysfunctional theatre, but that is a story for another time.

About a week into my internship, the charge artist decided to hire a third hand because the show we were painting was very large.  He said a guy by the name of Glenn Henley was coming to work with us, he had 17 years experience in Hollywood and also said that I could learn a lot from him.

Glenn and I hit it off straightaway and he became my best friend in Buffalo, New York.  Glenn decided there was something of worth about me and set out to mentor me.  He never asked for a dime, he just took it upon himself to give me more and more training.  I loved him for that.

One night, at eleven PM, Glenn called me and asked if I wanted to make a quick fifty.  I said, "Glenn, you know I always wanna make fifty bucks."  He then told me to meet him at the Kavinoky Theatre in half an hour.  I went and painted a marble floor with him till four in the morning.  I made fifty bucks, but I learned a new technique.  The new technique was far more valuable than the fifty.  Truth is, I would have gone over there without the pay because I knew when I hung out with Glenn I was going to learn something.  I was going to put a new trick in my bag, I was going to become a better painter.

BYU-Idaho
In Fall of 2000 I accepted a position at Brigham Young University-Idaho as a teacher of Scene Design and Technical Theatre.  After a couple of years, there I began teaching a scene painting class. I based the structure of the class on the one taught by Tom Bliese as well as syllabi from other programs around the country.  I based the projects on other experiences I had as a professional painter.

All through the years, from grad school on, I had wished to attend Cobalt Studios for additional training.  Cobalt Studios is a scene painting school in White Lake, New York and was started by Rachel Keebler and Howard Jones in 1988.  Howard left Cobalt in 1993 for other pursuits.  I became aware of Cobalt in around 1990 and had desired to study there ever since.  Rachel and Howard are two of the most respected scenic artists in the business.  The honor roll of guest lecturers at Cobalt are a who's who list of the best scenic artists in the country.

2014 Sabbatical
I worked without a sabbatical for fourteen years.  It wasn't the fault of the administration or the university that I hadn't taken a sabbatical, I just never took one.  Several of my colleagues encouraged me to take a sabbatical and I finally put a proposal together and submitted it.  My proposal included the Summer Scene Painting Session at Cobalt Studios.  My proposal was accepted and I attended in July and August of last summer.  I am very glad I did.

Cobalt is situated on about eighteen acres in White Lake, New York.  There is an old farmhouse, several outbuildings and finally the studio.  There are two summer sessions, The first is referred to as the rhubarb session and the second is referred to as the blueberry session.  Both so named for the plant that is in season during the session.  I attended the blueberry session.  I much prefer blueberries to rhubarb.

There are hundreds of blueberry bushes on the property and I grazed on them every day on my way to and from the studio.  It was idyllic.

Selfie in front of the farmhouse

Behind the farmhouse, the path to the studio

The farmhouse without the selfie

Beautiful bluestone wall

One of many outbuildings on the property

An extinct blueberry bush

Hundreds of blueberry bushes, millions of blueberries

Looking up from the hammock

The property extends to the treeline.  The bushes in the midground are blueberries

Sunset over Cobalt

Mossy log

Ambience
In the farmhouse and the studio, there were examples everywhere of great scene painting.  Paintings intended to inspire and awe the students.  Showcasing possibilities.

The Pièce de Résistance 

Three dimensional scenic art

More

Linenfold

Tutorial on trompe l'oeil 

More

Marble by a master painter

More trompe l'oeil

Still more

This one is by Howard Jones

Wonderful stuff

Inspirational

The Studio
When Rachel and Howard created Cobalt, they built the studio from the concrete slab up.  Everywhere I've painted until now was an existing space that was retrofitted to be a studio.  Cobalt is a building designed for one thing.  Painting.  It was refreshing to be painting in a room designed for just that purpose.  Everything made sense.  Everything there belonged.

The studio had a sitting room where people could gather for instruction, offices, a paint mixing room and the studio floor.  After a few days, it dawned on me that the mixing sinks were actually bathing tubs.

The studio floor, covered with bogus paper

Paint carts

Paint carriers

Tools

More tools

Straight edges

Kraft paper

The mixing room

shop built roller covers

Brush racks

Sprayers and dyes

Everything has a place

The tub, I mean sink

mixing table

Product shelves

More product

It begins
I had a fair amount of training before I attended Cobalt.  My biggest fear going there was that it would be remedial.  Going to Cobalt was a career long goal for me.  I had wished to attend for twenty-five years.  I had built up expectations and was terrified the experience would not live up to them.  I was wrong.  Expectations exceeded.

Kimb Williamson, one of the teachers made a comment to me the first week that they liked having their peers attend Cobalt.  I told her I didn't consider myself to be a peer, rather I considered myself to be a student.  I approached my time at Cobalt as such.  I decided I was not there to demonstrate things I already knew.  I wished to learn what was being taught.  If I had not been teachable my time at Cobalt would have been wasted.  Every time Kimb or Rachel corrected me I replied with, "Thank you."  I didn't try to justify bad behavior or explain myself, I just thanked them and corrected what I was doing.  Instead of getting my feelings hurt because I was being corrected, I approached it with the attitude that they thought enough of me to correct things I may be doing wrong or things I could be doing better.

I could do that because of the great respect I have for both of these great scenic artists.

I was giddy for the whole three weeks I was at Cobalt Studios.  I had two goals for my time at Cobalt. First, I wished to become a better painter, and second I wished to become a better teacher of scene painting.  The semester after I returned from Cobalt I taught scene painting.  Most of what I taught was informed by my time at Cobalt.  Rachel and Kimb have codified the training of scenic artists. I am thankful for the time I was able to spend with them.  I hope to attend some of the special seminars in years to come.

This blog post is intended to introduce the readers to Cobalt Studios.  I will blog about separate paint techniques in subsequent posts.

I heartily recommend the training at Cobalt for anyone who wishes to pursue scene painting as a vocation.

Kimb Williamson and me

Rachel and me alongside the "wild blueberry"