Scene Three

On a recent Friday evening my phone dinged at me - "Hey, do you have plans for tomorrow or Sunday?"  Hmmm, what will I be getting myself into?  Isn't that what we all think when an ambiguous question pops up?  Or... is that just me?  Oops.

Anyway, we had a Saturday cycle trip planned, but I was free Sunday and replied as such.  I soon discovered my friend Kristi had volunteered to paint 3 small background panels for the community theatre.  She was requesting my "artistic talents."  My initial reaction was, well, YIKES!  Me?!  Can I really be that much help?  The only large art I'd done was the whimsical sidewalk chalking last fall.  However, one of the themes here is to try new creative ventures, so I agreed.

a fireplace palette.

We met on a Sunday afternoon to begin what would take three additional evenings to complete.  The "small" backgrounds were 8 foot panels.  Small in theatre world I suppose, but not to this gal.  The musical was Into the Woods and we were charged with creating Cinderella's house/fireplace, a baker's shop/oven, and Jack's house/shack.  Thankfully, Kristi had a few ideas to get us started and we planned our attack with pencil & brush.


I painted Cinderella's fireplace.. stone by stone by stone.

Kristi tackled the baker's shop... layer by layer by layer.

                        

Working on the baker's oven.

We teamed up for the third panel - Jack's shack.  I roughed out the sketch and laid down the initial wood grain of the boards.  The next night  Kristi added detail to the wall and floor while I painted the window boards.  I think this panel had the best end result.  The team effort was a blast and there was plenty of chit chat.  Kristi was an art major as well and we tossed around mutual artist issues - like how intimidating it is to start something totally new on the page or canvas.  Those discussions were punctuated with comments on the project at hand - "Hmm, should I use another color?"  "What are you thinking?"  "How about I add a shadow here?"  That kind of stuff - bouncing back and forth as we worked.   

This project was time consuming and I was exhausted when we left each evening, but it was a fun experience.  The occasional complimentary cast member was a nice bonus - a nice confidence booster.  (And NO, I do not want to be a regular set painter.  Seriously, not.  Well, maybe I would help a waaaaays down the road.  Now, it's back to paper and small canvas - which are small in reality, not just in theatre terms.)

The first two panels on stage.  This was the last night we painted, so didn't get to see all three together.

All "finished."  For an artist - it's really never finished.  You just run out of time.

Now wasn't that a productive way to procrastinate my Sketchbook Skool homework?