Cobalt Studios: Summer Scene Painting #3

Cobalt Studios

Learning the Basics
Our first project that involved paint at Cobalt was all about the basics.  It was important to go back to the basics.  The foundation is the most important part of a house.  It's what holds the rest of it up.  I believe the fundamentals are the most important part of scene painting.  They are the basement, the foundation.  They make everything else make sense.  They hold everything else upright.  I was already familiar with much of what was being taught on this project.  I think all of the students were familiar with a lot of the early material.  The beauty of the Cobalt method, though is that the teaching is codified.  There is a system.  Each part in sequence.

I loved the Cobalt system.  I asked Rachel and Kimb if I could 'steal' it for when I taught my class back home.  They gave me permission.  Painting the basics in this way sets the stage for subsequent projects.  Everything builds off of previous projects.  We needed a strong foundation.

I've taught for years that the five steps of every great scene painting job are:
1.  Prime
2.  Base
3.  Workup
4.  Detail
5.  Seal

Prime
We first covered flats with muslin, then we sized them, or primed them with starch.  While we were waiting for the starch to dry, we sat at the desk and learned about geometry and how to use it in laying out large canvasses.  There was no wasted time during the work day at Cobalt.  That meant no wasted money.

Base
The next thing we learned was two different kinds of base coats.  A scumble and an ombré.  We divided our flat lengthwise in half and painted an ombré on one half and a scumble on the other.  An ombré is painted by taking one color and painting one side of the flat with strokes all going in the same direction.  The paint is pulled about halfway across the work and then you start on the other side with a different color and do the same thing, pull the paint from the edge to the middle.  Where the two colors meet, they blend over the middle third of the painting.

A scumble is a base coat that involves two or more colors that are laid down in patches and then are blended into each other.  The middle of each of the patches remains the pure color, but the edges are blended.  In a very fine scumble, it's difficult to tell where one color ends and the other begins.  Some scumbles are broader and less blended.  That's okay too.  Depends on what look you are going for.

Painting the ombré

Ombré

and scumble

Workup
While we were waiting for the base coat to dry, we went to the desks and learned other things.  That was a constant at Cobalt.  Never a wasted moment.  When the paint was dry, we divided the ombré in half lengthwise and also the scumble.  Now we had four sections to work with.

On one section, we made our own ragrolls by taking fabric and wrapping it around a roller and attaching it with rubber bands.  The rubber bands also served to break up the pattern in interesting ways.

Another section we took large brushes and spread the bristles out a bit and dragged a color along the length of the section.  Almost like a drybrush technique, but with more paint.

Still another section we painted with sponge rollers.

The last section we took rollers that had been cut and shaved in interesting ways and painted a texture with them.  Basically we were playing with many different textures.

Painting with a ragroll roller

Dividing the panels with brown kraft paper

The four textures, top to bottom:  Ragroll, Drag, Cut roller, Sponge roller

The next step of the workup was three different kinds of spatter.  The first one was a regular spatter, the second one was a wet spatter, where you spatter into a little bit of water and let the drops spread.  The third version was more of a bath where you spatter into pools of standing water.  Once again, we had stuff to do while the paint was drying.

Spatter

Wet spatter

Spattering

Bath

Detail
The first part of the detail was some linework.  We used a tool called a story stick that was a piece of brown kraft paper, folded in half with measured markings on it.  The story stick is placed on the side of the flat, marks are made with charcoal corresponding to the marks on the story stick, then it's turned over and the same marks are placed on the other side of the work.  After that, we used lining sticks and paintbrushes in the end of bamboo poles to make our lines.  Some of the lines were what they called "fuzzy lines" which meant we put down a little water on one side of the line and when we brushed paint into it, it spread and got fuzzy.  That's the basis for a lot of the trompe l'oeil we would do later in the session.  Trompe l'oeil is a French term that means "to fool the eye."

Lining

Lines

Fuzzy lines

Layout
The next part of the process was to use a pounce to lay out our cube, cone and cylinder.  We also used a compass to lay out our sphere.  A pounce is a piece of brown kraft paper which has been perforated with a particular shape.  It is then attached temporarily to the work and a piece of muslin with powdered charcoal is then rubbed on the perforations to leave charcoal residue in the voids.  When the pounce is lifted, the shapes appear.

Once the work has been pounced, we then inked the shapes with permanent marker.

Using a pounce

What that looks like

Inked

Lay In
The next step was to lay in the local color.  I used an angled Purdy sash brush for the job.  The reason we used permanent marker was so the ink would bleed through the paint.  There were several reference marks on the pounce that we would need later.

Laying in the local color

Local color, notice the bleed through

Geometry
The next step was to lay out the shadows.  We did this by chalking out indication lines, signifying the two directions the light was coming from, in other words light coming from the a axis and the b axis. The position of the sun has lateral direction as well as vertical direction.

Using the two directions, we were able to lay out the shadows of all the pieces.

Chalk indicating direction of sunlight

Using geometry to lay out the shadow on the cube

and the cylinder

and the cone

Pisaro Shapes
Camille Pisaro was a painter who theorized and standardized the painting of shapes.  She believed that if you could paint a cone, a cube, a cylinder and a sphere you could paint anything.  Those are the fundamental shapes found in everything.

While we were waiting for paint to dry, we went over and drew the Pisaro shapes and learned about the different elements used in painting them.  In other words highlight and shadow.

Shadow-This refers to the shadow that is cast from an object
Shade-This refers to the main part of the object that is shaded because it isn't in the light
Dark Toner-This refers to a secondary shade on the other side of the piece
Highlight-This refers to the area of the object that is in the path of the light
Zinger-This refers to a small section in the center of the highlight that is much brighter.  A flash.
Bounce Light-This refers to light that hits the object from a secondary light source
Cut Lines-This refers to sections of the object where it comes to rest on a surface.

The first thing we painted was the shade on all the objects.  We used burnt umber mixed with ultramarine blue and thinned to transparent with water for our shade color.  Where the shade fades out, we painted fuzzy lines.  While we had that color, we added in our dark toner on the other side.  The dark toner was just the shade color with a little extra water thrown in.

Painted shade and dark toner

We already did the lay out for the shadows and the next step was to paint them.  Our shadow color was ultramarine blue and velour black in equal parts and thinned to transparent with water.  In other words our shadow color was Paynes Grey.  Shade and shadow are transparent, just like in nature.

Shadows added

The highlights were added next.  Highlight is made by taking the local color and adding the color of the light and sometimes white.  For me, I like highlights that are translucent, which is that ethereal place somewhere between transparent and opaque.

When the highlights were dry, we added the zinger, or the flash light.  The flash light is opaque and it's the highlight color with white added.  It's more like the highest part of the reflection.

Highlight added to the top of the cube and cylinder 

Highlight added to the sphere and cone

Laying the zinger down

The zinger

More of the zinger

The next step was to add the bounce light.  Bounce light is light from a secondary light source.  When Rachel was talking about it, she mentioned dance lighting and the bright colors of sidelight they use.  She was hinting.  Most everyone else went conservative with their bounce light.  I went into the shop and found some florescent pink for mine.  Rachel approved.  I chose my bounce light direction from the floor to the left of the piece, so it would show up in the shade of the object.

Bounce light

Bounce light

The last step of this project is to add the cut line.  The cut line is pure black, opaque with is a simple line where the object comes to rest on the ground.  We painted them with a one inch Purdy angled sash brush because we could get the lines very thin with them.

The cut line on the cylinder

The cut line on the cube

The cut line on the cone

The sphere didn't get a cut line because it's floating.

The finished piece

Some of what was taught, I already knew and had already done.  I liked the way everything was taught at Cobalt though.  The really neat part about this technique is that you have a paint job that starts from general to very specific and you learn about twenty techniques without having to change the muslin on the flat or painting it out.  You have something to show for it at the end that represents what you learned.  That's powerful.  That'd codified.

I used this technique when I taught my scene painting class last fall.  It was revelatory.  As I taught the Cobalt method all semester, I realized that while some of my class may have been more talented than others, it seemed that every technique I taught, instead of the class sorting themselves into better and less better groups, everyone seemed to come along at the same rate of speed.  The thing is, they all painted better and everyone was challenged.

This experience at Cobalt was awesome.  I would love to go back for a second helping.

Cobalt Studios: Summer Scene Painting #2

Cobalt

The Day to Day
The Summer Scene Painting program at Cobalt is an intensive, three week, hands on experience.  It had been years since I had held a paintbrush for eight hours a day.  I loved every minute of the experience.  For me that is Zen.

We started out with basics, as one would expect.  Much of what I learned at Cobalt was material I was already familiar with, but somehow each concept was taught in a different way than I had heard it before.  This time, it wasn't just about how to do things but also why we do them that way.  There was a healthy dose of geometry and physics and a few other surprising sciences taught.

Every minute of the work day at Cobalt was scripted.  Rachel and Kimb know how long everything should take and plan accordingly.  There was time for each project to be completed with no real down time.  There was no real wasted time.  For each thing, they would let us know at the beginning how long it should take and gave us that much time.

Each day began in the waiting room where we had a joke of the day, then we would talk about that day's project.  At that point, we would go into the studio and sit around a table for instruction.  The time was balanced, in the first and second week between instructional experiences and practical experiences.  This was really important during times when we were waiting for paint to dry.  Instead of sitting around doing nothing, Rachel and/or Kimb would gather us at a table and lecture.  Each session was planned and there were great handouts for each of them.  No real wasted time at Cobalt.

The First Thing
The basics are important in anything we do.  Scene painting is no different.  We started out with layout and cartooning.  Every good painting, whether you are painting on an easel or on a grand scale for the theatre, begins as a good drawing.

The first couple of days, we worked on how to scale and layout drawings using charcoal grids.  Scenic artists traditionally stand up to paint or draw but their work is on the ground.  Vine charcoal and paintbrushes are inserted into the end of three to four foot bamboo poles and we work at arms length plus that.  People tell me all the time they can't imagine painting that way.  I tell them it's just a matter of brush choice, brush placement and trust.  If you can get past the mental part, anyone can paint in this fashion.

Years ago, I made a conscious decision when learning scene painting, to trust the teacher.  People who know what I want to know.  I decided they were teaching things for a reason and it must be important.  Being teachable is the most important part of being a student.  Period.

The first mini-project we were given was a line drawing cartoon.  Each of us received a different cartoon and we were expected to scale it and make a grid and then transfer it to a large piece of craft paper.  I got a turtle, whose name escapes me.

Drawing with a charcoal in the end of a bamboo stick.  Holding the reference drawing is essential

The finished drawing.  Notice the faint charcoal grid

The Second Thing
After we finished our drawings, the next project was to create a much larger drawing as a team.  My team chose a Hirschfield drawing.  Each of us took a different third of the drawing.  We created a grid with charcoal and snaplines.  Then we each cartooned our section of the drawing and hoped it matched up.

Once we were done with that, we teamed up again and had to lay out a perspective drawing.

Drawing the Hirshfield

The finished piece

The perspective drawing

Cobalt Teachings
During the first week, when we were waiting for paint to dry on a project, we sat around a chalk board and learned about light, shadow, highlight, bouncelight and etc...  Each thing we learned prepared us for something in the next project.  Everything built on the last thing.  It was very much a line upon line, precept upon precept experience.

We learned about how to draw cylinders, cones, cubes and spheres.  We learned about the different types of shadows and highlights.  Everything that was taught had a purpose.  There was no wasted time.  Great experience.  One I hope to repeat.

Pissaro shapes

With teachings

Reminders

Cobalt Life
The most important part of the Cobalt experience is the work in the studio.  When we weren't in the studio, we had a little time to ourselves.  Prior to attending Cobalt, we all received a questionnaire about food.  What we'd like to be stocked for breakfast, what food allergies we had, etc...  Since I have a great deal of food allergies, I thought I'd have to sneak out and find stuff to eat.  I never had to do so.

Each of us took turns over the three weeks where we'd either be the head chef or an assistant in the kitchen.  Every night there were gluten free, soy free, dairy free options for me to eat.  There were a few other students with some food allergies and everyone who cooked made certain everyone could eat.  That was a kindness.  We ate well at Cobalt.  Everyone was on their best behavior and everyone made sure they made their best dish.  I made my son in law's famous asparagus wrapped in black forest ham with asiago cheese.  Big hit with the other students.

Our day began with breakfast.  Everyone was on their own for breakfast.  The fridge and pantry were well stocked with the items we had asked for on the questionnaire so no one went hungry.  After breakfast we headed to the studio and worked.  At lunchtime, we went back to the farmhouse and ate lunch.  Typically it was leftovers from the night before.  Then back to the studio for the next round.  When it was time for dinner, the chef and the assistants left and began cooking.  When we weren't in the kitchen, we could explore the property, take walks, graze on blueberries, meditate or enjoy one another's company.  It was important to share an evening meal together.  After supper we had time to ourselves.

In the group I was in there were no smokers or vegetarians.  Rachel said that was very rare.  My time at Cobalt was idyllic.  Every moment of every day was exciting.  I had waited so long to come and I had been worried it wouldn't live up to my expectations.  All of that was put to rest the first day.  I was so thankful to be at Cobalt.  Mind blowing, life changing.

On the weekends we were able to go exploring.  We didn't go to the studio on Saturdays or Sundays.  Cobalt is in a small town in the Catskills called White Lake, New York.  The studio is eleven miles away from the site of the epic concert Woodstock.  They have a museum there and one weekend some of us went there.  Images of that trip can be seen here.  Some of the students opted to go into the city for the weekend.  I chose to hike.  We were in the Catskills.  I have already been to New York City and I am sure I will go back.  It's not often I get to hike the Catskills.  The National Park Service manages long sections of the Delaware River near there and there were a series of six short hikes you could do and then receive a patch for them.  A few of us decided to get the patch.  We had a great time and accomplished our goal.  Those hikes can be viewed here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The Studio Cat
Rachel says every studio needs a cat.  We had Winifred.  There were times when I had to work in the studio alone.  A few times I wanted to go in and finish something and ended up in the studio after hours.  Winnie was a welcome companion during those times.  She kept watch over the studio.  She knew who was in charge.  Apparently she gets the most hits on the Cobalt Studios Facebook page.

Winnie

Knows who is really in charge

Cobalt Studios is a great training ground for scenic artists.  I loved my time there and hope to go back for some of the other training that goes on there.  I would recommend Cobalt Studios to anyone who was serious about learning the craft of scene painting.  Great times.

Quilters--Scene Design

The cast of Quilters

Quilters by Molly Newman and Barbara Damashek was produced Spring Semester, 2012 in the Snow Black Box Theatre at Brigham Young University-Idaho.

Synopsis
Quilters is a musical about the frontier life of women in the American West.  The play is more a series of vignettes rather than a straightforward narrative.  Each vignette is titled for a particular quilt block.  In the end, the sixteen blocks are assembled into a giant quilt.

The vignettes deal with winter, fire, childbirth, marriage, death, spinsterhood, tornadoes, among other things.  All aspects of women's lives in the settling of the west.

Concept
I suggested in our earliest meeting that we have a giant quilt without blocks in the shape of a mountain as a backdrop and each scene, when they were done with the block they were working on they would place it on the quilt backdrop.  That idea was considered and ultimately discarded for a better one.

Original idea for the set of Quilters

Hyrum Conrad, the director of Quilters said he wanted representations of each of the quilt blocks named in the play.  He wished to present the play in the round and wanted to see each of the quilt blocks on frames behind the audience, with each of them being lit individually when they were featured in the music.

I suggested building a quilt block out of wood decking material as the basis of the set with furniture and set pieces used throughout.  We also agreed that some of the more abstract moments of the play could be accomplished with fabric.

Design
For the stage deck, we decided upon a hexagon quilt block to give a central platform at 12 inches above the main deck with a secondary square level at six inches off the main deck.  The platform would be painted like wood rather than fabric.  Just the shapes of the quilt block would be apparent.

Ground plan for Quilters

We researched all of the named quilt blocks and found photo images and patterns for each of them. Susan Whitfield, our costume designer is also a quilter.  She worked tirelessly finding the right vintage fabrics and patterns.  We had to sew two of each block, one to be loose and the other to be bound in a quilt.

Execution
While the stage deck was being built, we stretched muslin over 6' X 6' steel frames and the scenic artists matched the fabric of each block with paint.  We painted two of each of the sixteen blocks and hung them behind the audience.  Then the lighting designer, Ray Versluys could feature each painted block with a theatrical spotlight when it was sung about.

Quilt blocks everywhere.  In addition, furniture pieces from our stock, found objects and fabric were used to create settings within the main quilt block.

Opening number

Heading west in a covered wagon represented by giant quilting hoops

That first winter

Baby's Block

Childbirth

Pinwheel

Abstract representation of windmills

The general store

"Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb"

"Pieces of Our Lives"

The Schoolhouse Block

Four Doves Block

Double Wedding Ring Block

One of the darker scenes

The clothesline with all the large quilt blocks

Nice lighting moment

Same song

Mama's sermon

Abstract representation of fire

Spreading out the completed quilt

The tableaux vivante 

Our costume designer, Susan Whitfield was nearing retirement.  She had always wanted to do quilters sometime during her career.  Hyrum Conrad directed the play as a favor to her.  This was a labor of love for us for Susan.  It was a joy to work on, I'm glad we did so.

Production Details
Directed by Hyrum Conrad
Scene Design by Gary Benson
Costume Design by Susan Whitfield
Lighting Design by Ray Versluys
Sound Design by Antonia Clifford
Technical Director:  Ray Versluys
Costume Shop Director:  Patty Randall

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead--Scene Design

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard was produced Spring semester 2013 in the Snow Black Box Theatre at Brigham Young University-Idaho.

Synopsis
In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern accompany Hamlet on a ship to England.  They have been given a letter by the king of Denmark to give to the king of England.  The letter tells the English king to have Hamlet Executed.  Hamlet uncovers the plot and switches the letter for one that tells the English king to have Rosencrantz and Guildenstern executed.  At the end of Shakespeare's play, a messenger enters amid the carnage and states, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead."

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist play about the adventures of the two minor characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet.  There are plot points about the idea of fate and not being able to escape it.  The play begins with the duo betting on coinflips with Rosencrantz betting and winning on heads ninety-two times in a row.  Throughout the play, the troupe of Hamlet's actors, Hamlet himself and the royal entourage from Hamlet appear on the stage.

The pair ponder fate and the essence of reality.  Ultimately, though they accept their fate and die.

Concept
For a concept, we decided to produce the play as a single set show with the only scene change coming at intermission.  The different locations such as the ship would be rendered by found objects on the stage.  Trevor Hill, the director also wanted to have several traps in the stage so the actors could appear and reappear here and there.  He also wanted a fast trap so the pair could disappear instantly at the time of their deaths.

I suggested we set the play in the ruins of an old Parrish church somewhere in a nondescript place.  He liked the idea and that is where we ended up setting the play.  I submitted some initial pencil sketches to the director.  Let the play begin!

Study for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Execution
In order to accommodate the traps in the stage, I had to design a deck that was 36" tall.  That didn't give much room underneath but it gave enough to do the job.  The outside walls were made of polystyrene foam sheets which I carved with acetone.  It should be noted that I did so with proper ventilation.

I had originally designed a lot more rubble in the set, but during rehearsal it was determined that they didn't wish to use it so much of the debris in the design never materialized.  I would have liked to see how the characters would have navigated the set with a great deal of rubble to go around or climb over.

For the altar in the nave of the Parrish church, I designed what we called the Apostle Altar.  There was a fast trap on the top of the altar which, when the brake was released, both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were able to step on it and immediately disappear from view, thus they met their end.  I made the apostles out of old G.I. Joe action figures.  A tutorial on how we made the Apostle Altar can be found here.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern flipping the coin in front of the Apostle Altar

The set for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Planking

Conspiring

Using the debris

The set and the players

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is one of those plays that theatre people typically have on their bucketlist to produce.  I'm glad I had the opportunity to work on this show.  I like the design and I also liked our production.

Production Details
Directed by Trevor Hill
Scene Design by Gary Benson
Costume Design by Kathy Schmid
Lighting Design by Ray Versluys
Technical Director:  Ray Versluys
Costume Shop Director:  Patty Randall