This cloth about 4x6 metres
Fleming Foulton is a special school where many of the pupils (and the cast for their version of Annie) are in wheelchairs. So the stage is huge, almost full theatre size, to accomodate this.

Claire writes: "I painted everything with emulsion, (USA= Latex) mostly, and at times had to colour it with school paint. (I tried to use up ancient supplies of powder paint but this was a hassle and very messy.)

The orphanage was rendered with a colour wash. I painted the base colour a creamy pink colour and then colour washed it with several washes. These were emulsion mixes watered down probably 1part paint to 2or3 water. Having applied it randomly I then worked it in/off with a dry brush and a cloth. It is a process of leaving some on but lifting quite a bit off as well as you distribute the colour. The paint dries quickly when it is thinned so you have to work quickly and on smallish areas at a time. It works well if you take the time to build it up in layers of different tints. I used more brown/taupe colours to look like staining around the windows.

I ran out of time towards the end and had to render the "tongue and groove" with chalk. I wanted it to look old and battered but obviously wooden.

The canvas for this is fixed to an enormous frame which slides on rollers attached to the ceiling of the stage (very professional for a school and a great job!). It was a huge area to cover- I had to use scaffolding- but very handy as the canvas effortlessly slid out of the way along a backstage wall whenever you wanted."