14 September 2017

[scenicdesign71]

I don't believe I've ever started one of these, so what the heck.

Apropos of nothing, a picture I just found on my phone from a few weeks back:

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It may look a little alarming, but I'm fine.  The expression is just my usual intent scowl, not an indication of pain or distress.

At work, everyone had drifted outside around midafternoon to watch the eclipse.  I had been in the shop mixing color -- evidently something involving burnt sienna, though I no longer remember what for -- and had somehow unknowingly smeared some tint on my face in the process, as one of my coworkers pointed out to me ("having a Braveheart moment?") when I joined her outside to take a peek at the sky.

Highly superconcentrated pigment suspended in who-knows-what unpronounceable chemical binder/medium isn't something to get into one's eyes ("may cause eye, skin and respiratory tract irritation," according to the fine print) -- so, once she had explained her cryptic remark, my first instinct was obviously to go wash it off immediately.  But to gauge the urgency of the situation without a mirror handy -- skin contact is one thing, eye contact (or even risk thereof) another -- I took this quick selfie.

Needless to say, upon seeing the photo I abandoned the eclipse-watching and hastened to the men's room to wash up -- never an especially quick process when tint is involved, even in small amounts, since its supersaturation means it takes awhile for the water to run clear.  And by the standards of one who uses them regularly, this was a surprisingly not-small amount.  Fortunately none of the tint actually got into my eye at any point.

There are several other photos from work that I'm dying to share -- photos of the work, that is: evidence of my actual skills rather than of my clumsiness! -- but probably shouldn't for now, lest they violate CBS's social-media non-disclosure policy.  I'm thinking of a specific recent project that ended up combining painting per se with prop fabrication and graphic design/illustration as well -- one of the more satisfying uses, on this job so far, of several of my particular strengths and interests.  It also required a fanciful sense of visual whimsy, which made a refreshing departure from the norm on this type of show (i.e. political procedural drama); overall, an almost embarrassingly fun and silly way to spend a couple of weeks at union wages.  Perhaps once the episode has aired, sometime in November, I'll be able to post something with less misgiving.

[DiveMilw]

Can't wait until you are able to post photos.  I always enjoy seeing your work.  

One summer I was helping to build sets for a community theater and EVERY production (there were four) utilized burnt turkey umber in some way.  We weren't sure if the designer really liked the color that year or if it was a little, private joke he had.    

[scenicdesign71]

In general, non-plot-spoiling terms, that project involved designing and creating an advertising mascot to be featured on some posters, stickers, product packaging etc., and also painting it in roughly human scale (and then aging it down) to appear on a old, weathered billboard.  The set in question was one of the most fun we've done so far -- and pleasingly-executed enough overall to inspire, the day after filming, an effusive thank-you memo to the entire art department from one of our producers.  In combination with a congratulatory text message from our gifted set decorator praising the character design specifically, I have to admit I was feeling pretty good that week.

More recently, last Friday I spent about half the day with two other scenics working on three oversized "oil portraits" to appear in the background of a (more typical for this show) fustily grand old public building.  As is standard in this type of work, the portraits came to us as full-color digital prints on canvas, already stretched and framed -- so we weren't actually painting them from scratch.  Our job, using acrylic colors and artists' brushes, is simply to "sweeten-up" the print, which is often relatively low-resolution; to adjust color, eliminate pixellation and get some painterly brushstroke-y-ness back into the image, before applying a final coat of clear varnish (tinted with just a bit of raw umber to suggest age).

The process can be as involved as repainting the entire image in acrylics on top of the print; or (if it's higher-res to begin with, and doesn't require color-correction) as simple as going over it with clear gel medium, in strokes corresponding plausibly-enough to the original artist's, in order to add a hint of dimensional impasto texture which will be further enlivened by the shiny "age" varnish.

On Friday, we did a little of each of the above, though these particular paintings could probably have used even more work; a lot of pixellation/artifacting, a bit of color adjustment, and a considerable shift in scale (judging by the original artist's signatures, the images seemed to have been blown-up to roughly three or four times their original size) were among the challenges that kept us busy for about six hours per portrait.  But these paintings were just background dressing; a "hero" piece, especially for a movie (as opposed to TV, which operates on a tighter schedule and needn't hold up to such close scrutiny as the big screen) could easily take days or even weeks, as described in more detail in the NYT article linked above.

This show's overall milieu includes plenty of fustily grand old public buildings, and therefore a fair number of "old paintings" -- one of our primary standing sets includes an entire (faux-)marble-floored, barrel-vaulted, light-filled portrait gallery hung with likenesses of a dozenish former dignitaries.  So it was sort of surprising to realize that, three seasons in, this was my first chance to actually work on a painting myself.  It had been a long, more-than-usually exhausting week, so it was a really nice relaxing way to spend a Friday.