Set Design: "Grimm's Tales"

Here are some backstage production photos from my Set Design Club. This was for the school play "Grimm's Tales". I collaborated with the Drama teacher and made some initial sketches of what she was looking for in terms of backdrops. Once the sketches were finalized, students projected them onto large, hinged wooden backdrops using an opaque projector. An old-skool projector is ideal as you can really, really enlarge a drawing.

So below you can see students are tracing the initial drawing.

Then they start painting. Here they are painting a large, open book. We used house paints.

Here's the finished 'book' backdrop.

Here's the dark forest scene for the Hansel & Gretel story. It looked much more effective with the lights out and spot-light on it...

Set Design: "Annie"

These are some set design photos from a school play for "Annie" we did a few years ago. My Set Design Club painted the backdrops and made some of the props. At this school, we had two sets of backdrops. They were essentially two huge 1/4" boards hinged together and placed on large caster wheels. They were definitely not the most stable of backdrops I have worked with! 

Very top-heavy and tippy....

We painted the board with house paint. Once dry, we stapled large pieces of burgandy fabric to the top.  These could be flipped over the boards to hide the painted scene when not in use.

Below, you can see students tracing the initial drawing onto the backdrop. We use the trusty old opaque projector to project the drawing. A digital projector will also work.

Once the drawing is complete, students start the painting process. 

We use cheap-o house paint- it's messy. Very messy. No matter how many drop cloths or newspapers you put down, paint drips seem to get everywhere!

Below is supposed to be a 1930's skyline of New York City.

Here's a scene from inside Daddy Warbuck's mansion.

And here's some scenes from the play itself.

Set Painting for School Plays

As Art teachers, many of us are involved with the annual school play. In all of the schools I have worked out, I have been in charge of the set paintings for the school play. I usually design the backdrops and some of the props, and sometimes design the poster and program, if there's no IT teacher. As anyone who has been involved in this knows, it is a huge undertaking, especially if you're the only Art teacher in the school! For that reason, I've always had a "Set Design Club". I try to get at least a couple of talented high schoolers to help out, and then kids in the younger grades can join as well. Depending on how organized the whole production is,  I either get to start early in the process or scramble at the last minute! (usually involving evenings and weekends- ugh).

I took a few photos this year of how I go about designing a backdrop for a school play. I worked very closely with the Drama teacher- they are like kindred spirits to us Art teachers; I've never met a Drama teacher I didn't like! They are so energetic and enthusiastic!

So, after meeting with the Drama teacher on what their vision is for the play, I make some watercolour sketches of what the backgrounds might look like. Then I meet again with the Drama teacher and we discuss them and I make any needed changes or adjustments.

preliminary watercolour sketch for the mountain scene

This year, the play was "The Hobbit". I had to do some research (aka: Wikipedia, heh, heh) on it as I have never read the book. The school didn't have any existing backdrops, so the Drama teacher had these huge flats built by a carpenter friend, then she and I spent a Saturday stretching canvas on them. It was a two-person job for sure: one to stretch the fabric and the other to staple.

These are about 4 ' x 9'. They were HUGE!!!  The first ones were even bigger, but after stetching one of them in the basement of the Drama room and then trying to move it upstairs, we realized they didn't fit through the doors! The poor carpenter had to disassemble all 9 flats and re-do them.

Lesson learned: make sure the backdrops fit through doorways!

So the Drama teacher had this brilliant idea of having three scene changes. To do this, we had three panels for each scene. I numbered the backs of these 1,2 and 3. All the # 1 panels were hinged together and put on heavy duty caster wheels. Same with the #2 and #3 panels. So essentially, each panel had three different scene changes on it. For the scene change, stagehands in the back of the stage would swivel/turn the panels around so the next scene (ie: #2) would line up. It worked surprisingly well.

Back to the process. Once the canvas was stretched, I had my Grade 6 class prime all the panels during class one day. We used cheap latex house paint (mis-tints at the hardware store) for this step. Using house paint is always messy because it's so liquidy and drippy. We put drop-cloths under everything, but inevitably paint seems to get everywhere and I was running around like a madwoman

with a bucket and sponge trying to stay on top of all the drips.

Ok- let these dry flat, otherwise the stretchers could warp. 

Once dry, I projected my sketch with an opaque projecter onto the canvas and students

traced the drawing, using charcoal, directly onto the canvas. 

Then let the painting begin. I post my watercolour sketch for students to refer to. I save loads of plastic containers with lids to use for mixing colours. Have lots of buckets with water to clean the brushes in. This painting process takes a surprising amount of time due to the amount of surface area being covered. The paint was surprisingly inexpensive as we just bought mis-tints at the hardware store. You simply need a few basic colours and from there you can mix so many additional colours. 

Phew! Finished! Here is the completed scene #1 panels in the gym ready for the first scene.

Here's Gollum!

Here's the Dwarves with our #2 mountain scene backdrop.

Here's scene #3 with Smaug the dragon. Check out the cool papier mache dragon head! 

A student dressed in black is manipulating the head.

End of the play. ALOT of work, time and effort goes into any school production, but it's worth it once you see the play and the reactions of the students, staff and parents. As well, the kids who help out painting get a sense of pride and accomplishment in seeing their hard work on stage. They also get a 'real life' experience through working on a collective project outside of school time; the whole process is so valuable on many different levels.

Please share any of your school production experiences/tips/suggestions in the comments section!

Mural Painting with Children

My first year teaching I started a Mural Club- our school grounds had three buildings/classrooms I was told I could paint on at will. Needless to say, painting with elementary aged children- with house paint- was an, er, experience. 

I learned alot that year:

1. House paint drips. Alot. Down children's arms when you're painting a vertical surface. 

It even gets into their hair.

2. Parents can be very forgiving and understanding if their kids are having a great time.

3. Vaseline (petroleum jelly) gets house paint off skin/hair.

4. I will never do a Mural Club with young students again!!!

Here are the results: Ta da!

 

Don't be fooled- this photo was taken the day after we finished painting...

Our Caribbean themed mural- an illustrated map of Hispaniola.

This was the athetics logo which we painted on the PE storage shed.