Fourth page of painting the "King and I" Backcloth |
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THE ACTUAL PAINTING
WORK OF THE "KING AND I" BACKCLOTH |
This took three days. I started on the Wednesday. |
OOPS
A couple of days before I started painting
I was asked if I could extend either side of the picture by four feet.
I had already planned a powder-blue wall to go behind the dragons, so
I extended that either side by painting on the actual stage back wall
and "furnished" it with trees and flowers and shadows, to marry
my wall painting with the canvas. (There's to many "walls"
in that sentence but I hope you get what I mean) The total painting
is now 27 feet wide. |
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THE CHALK GRID Disappeared having
been washed out by the paint.
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FIRST ACTUAL PAINTING TASK
Was to paint in the sky and background mountains and trees. All this was
done at breakneck speed (Well as fast as I could go) as I wanted to have
the paint wet whilst I blended the colours together on the canvas. Watercolourists
call this "Wet in wet" The distant mountains
and trees have to be very subtle and out of focus. Brought about in
real life by the dust particles in the air. Now you'll see the value
of the masking tape as I was able to slosh about without worrying that
I would lose my outlines.
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AS THE WORK PROGRESSES
On Wednesday I painted in the main elements
in a base colour (called "Blocking-in"). Really, for me, this
is a psychological trick to get colour all over the thing. That huge white
canvas is very daunting until I have it covered with colour. The colour
I put on was an approximation of what I hope the final colours will be,
but from now on I will be "bringing on" or "knocking back"
(fading out) each element more or less at the same time. This means I
can judge colour, strengths, contrasts, etc. as I progress. I aim for
contrast of colours (Dark against Light). And silhouette (such as the
foliage along the top and the palm leaves on the right). This is the fun
stage as I am almost literally "walking about" in one of my
paintings. This too is the time when I know why I have this absorbing
hobby.
It is after the blocking-in stage that I removed
the outline masking tape. Then on the Thursday I set-to and repainted
practically everything again!! |
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TRICKS
I employ lots of self taught tricks whilst painting stage scenery - .
Too numerous to mention here, Here are a couple:-
To differentiate between
elements I "mist" (I scrub with a very dry brush with a little
thick white on) the back piece where it overlaps the foreground item.
This makes the foreground one stand out.
I considered adding in a lane going up the blank
area in the centre of this cloth. So "practiced" the layout
of this lane using masking tape. |
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FIRE-BELL
Right in the centre of the cloth, at the top, is the college's fire bell!!
There is no way of moving it. So I have disguised it amongst the foliage
of the tree. Appropriately there is now a red flower painted on the fire
bell.
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PAINT
All the paint I use for backcloths is ordinary household Vinyl Matt Emulsion
(I think known as latex in USA) However in this particular case
I also used some theatrical gold paint for the ornamental embellishments
on the dragons. I always mix the colours, I never paint straight from
the tin.
Mixing is done in a very casual way so that I get
streaks and textures which livens up the surface. I will regularly have
two different colours on the same brush, especially when painting foliage.
Oh yes and I rarely, if ever, use black (even mixed in with other colours)
On this cloth I used about a couple of tablespoon's full.
At the end of the painting there were some sections
of the canvas with a covering of up to eight layers of paint. |
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SPIRIT LEVEL
Used often with architecture. There's nothing more irritating than to
be presented with a slightly askew set of pillars.
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FIREPROOFING
Then when the picture was completed I sprayed the whole canvas with a
fire retarding solution.
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Regards, Brian
Willis (Date 11/9/02)
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THE END |
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