Scenic Painting Coursework
Scene Painting II Projects
Final Project
Our final was an image we pick ourselves, and I chose this moment from the NY Ballet’s production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I was drawn to how everything looks painted, even items/people that weren’t. I also wanted to continue to challenge myself with painting humans. Something I struggled with the most in this is trying to convey the right amount of detail needed to understand what was happening in the darkest parts of the painting. Overall, I’m very proud of it and this has to be one of my favorite projects.
Trompe L'oeil
This Trompe L’oeil might be one of my favorite projects to date. This has to be one of my biggest weaknesses as an artist; highlights and shadows can be tricky for me. However, I feel that this project was quite successful. I approached it by focusing on the shadows first and built them up and then did the highlights in the same manner. Once satisfied, I kept adjusting areas as needed and finished it off with a yellow wash so that they looked golden.
Linear Perspective
Admittedly, one of my weaker skills as an artist is perspective, so this project was a daunting to me. My approach to it was understanding that since my layout had so many imperfections that I would hone in on all the details of my reference image. The goal here was to create so much visual interest so that your eye wouldn’t focus on the slight imperfections with the perspective. Overall, I think it worked quite well.
Monet
This was assigned to us as our first project in scene painting II. The purpose of this was to force us to take something as detailed and overwhelming as a Monet painting and break it down into sections. My process involved creating a grid, mapping it out, then painting it starting from the background and working my way to the foreground, using various techniques.
Hand Lettering
I’ve done some text on previous shows, so I’ve worked through this process before. However, I wanted to challenge myself with the various type faces and the italics. The italics and script text did prove to be a challenge, but I enjoyed the process of it. I really love the scumble and the serif text. Overall, I think this is my most successful experience at hand lettering.
Sculpting
For this project, we used our same reference photo from the trompe l’oeil assignment and had to use either additive or subtractive methods to carve a section of the reference image. I wanted to get a feel for both, so the rays of light extending from the face I carved out of the piece of foam. For the face itself, I used air dry clay to build it up. I ran into some difficulties with the clay cracking and falling off but managed it by smoothing it out with thinner sections of clay and roughing up the foam surface.
Wallpaper
This project was something I experienced for the first time and was quite challenging in that regard. I found that this was 80% prep work and 20% painting, which is interesting because so far most projects have been the opposite. I made a stencil for this wallpaper and that posed its own unique problems and took some experimenting to figure out. I think this was a fun project and I would love to try out other methods in the future.
Scene Painting I Projects
One of the first scenery painting assignments; we had to use four different techniques. I did a scumble, sponge work, a wet/wash scumble and dry brushing. I also practiced with drawing lines.
Techniques
Marble
For this assignment we painted marble, but the key component here is that the marble follows a logic. It’s part of the challenge. The other part is how these veins are created, how sediment looks when it’s deposited. My technique was to work wet, draw lines with water and then add paint. After that I would sponge specific spots to give it depth. I also worked in many layers to achieve the desired effect.
Distressing/Texture
After painting Marble, the next assignment was to create a trompe le’oil and then to distress it. I picture my marble to be on a wall, so the distressing would get caught in the grooves. I painted semi wet for this and let gravity help with the way the distressing dripped. I sponged on green to create a moss-like grime and used a darker grey for general grime.
For the textures project, I wanted to experiment more with fabric. I used muslin, cheese cloth, hot glue, beads, markers and paint to achieve this. I filled the balls of cloth with hot glue to help it hold its shape.
Final Project
For the final project we had to paint the entirety of our flat and it had to have various elements in it (from previous assignments). I painted an image from a cemetery. The challenge here was making sure the perspective was correct and creating the illusion of depth.