English Robin on a Brake Cable

English Robin on a Brake Cable - ~90cm x 60cm - Latex on Plywood

A few months back, I mentioned I did a thing... (went back to school). As of this past Thursday I am done for the term, having written my final exam. I'd started out the term taking a Sculpture and Drama class and ended up dropping the sculpture class (for a number of reasons, largely because I'd injured my shoulder and wasn't sure I was going to be able to do the work, but also checking on classes/credits I have versus classes I still want to take, I did not need the sculpture class, and, indeed, if I did finish it, I would not have been able to take one of the drawing classes I wanted to take later in the program...). 

The Drama class I was taking was Technical Theatre (Scenic Construction) - not acting - and so involved a bit of art making as part of the projects required for the class. 

The class was really fun, the teacher just fantastic with a wealth of knowledge from decades of working in theatre and filmmaking. While the class is called Technical Theatre I Scenic Construction, there was also parts on general layouts and theatre safety and an introduction to entertainment rigging. 

One of the final projects was building and painting a "TV flat". A "TV flat" is a modular section of a wall used to define space on a stage in a theatre or a soundstage. A TV flat differs from a more traditional theatre flat in the way the framing is laid out and TV flats have a plywood facing, whereas traditional Theatre Flats usually have a fabric facing. 

The first part of the project was just cutting the wood and assembling the flat in the theatre shop. The second part was to take a 6"x9" image and transpose it onto the flat using a grid method. The image on the flat was to be painted with interior laytex paint and a limited palette of primary colours were supplied and other colours had to be mixed from those. 

Most students picked images they did not create, but me, being me, decided I needed to paint something I MADE... 

Amanda took this picture of an English Robin on one of her trips to the UK many years ago and it hangs on a wall in a hallway in our house. I've often thought it would make a fun painting. 

I did a rough sketch with ink and watercolours and changed up some of the colours... just to see what that might look like. 

And then did a better copy with gouache on paper (~11'x17") and sent that to the prof to print off as a 6x9 image for me to copy onto the flat. 

While I was at it, I also touched up/repainted two other paintings I'd previously done (because we were supposed to submit a few options...)

Deirdre the DH Diplodocus - I literally took the original - painted in watercolours and inks - and painted over it with Gouache (as I figured gouache would be easier to reproduce with latex paints than wishy-washy watercolours!)

Pink Surly Karate Monkey on Blue-Green Background - this was already painted with gouache, but I touched it up, and extended the colour on a couple edges of the paper, to eh bike would fit into and area that would be cropped to make it a 2:3 ratio... 

Initially the prof suggested doing the dinosaur... but I talked him into letting me to the bird! 

Grid Transposition Method. 

outline done

mixing paints to figure out the greens.

painting the background

finishing things up. 

I did most of this work at home over the long weekend at the beginning of April, right before the last day of classes - when the projects were due! (I was NOT the only one leaving things to the last minute!). In the end the class was given a week extension. 

I hauled it all back to campus and submitted along with my drafting project. 

There was a drafting project as well which was fun - drawing a plan and front elevation of a small stage set. Got to bust out some skills and equipment I had not used in a LONG time... 

The painting project was really fun too. I feel like I have not been doing much painting for the last few years. What little painting I have been doing has been ink or watercolours and this felt like getting back to doing the things I used to do. 

Am I going to be doing more work with laytex paints in the immediate future... I don't know... 

Am I going to continue with this return to school business...? I don't know.. 

Probably... 

Unfortunately, I HAD planned to take some classes this summer - to get the first year Foundation in Drawing classes out of the way (which I'd never bothered to do back when I was taking classes in the 1990s...) but for some reason (some sort of restructuring of the School of the Arts curriculums...?) there were almost NO studio art or drama classes being offered in spring or summer session - despite there being all sorts of drama and studio art classes every spring and summer since, like, forever (my very first studio art classes were taken in Intersession and summer session back in... 1995...? Morgan took Drama last summer...) - all of which REALLY kind of wrecked my plans for how the next three years might roll out... Either I'll have to abandon the original plan of taking 4th year senior Drawing and Related Work IV A and B classes... or I'll be going to school for an extra year...?

So no school this summer... on the plus side, I'm probably travelling to France and the Netherlands, so I'll be seeing lots of (and perhaps making some) art while I'm there!