Painting Stage Sets

Usually, when I paint a mural, I meet with the client, discuss their wants and needs, get a feeling for them and their home, then design and create a rendering for them to approve. Not so the case in my current project – painting sets for Capital Christian Center’s Christmas show.

It’s an elaborate Dickens-style production. All the sets have an old England feel. Most of the colors are dark and greyed. Once we get to the sets that will be closet to the audience, the colors will be a bit more vivid.

As I stated before, a fellow artist pulled me in on the project. She’s been painting CCC’s sets for 12 years and is an incredible artist. Check out Theresa’s work

here. I’m thrilled to be working with an artist of her caliber. She’s open and warm and willing to share – an oftentimes rarity in this business.

For this project, I haven’t seen the actual stage yet, nor met with any of the principle decision-makers. On the one hand, this makes it easy. I just follow what Theresa tells me to do. On the other hand, it’s a little difficult because I don’t have a full grasp on what is expected. But I love just painting, with none of the other responsibilities that go along with such a massive project.

We’re working in a huge (55,000 sq. ft) warehouse. Luckily, there are ladders and scaffolds. This is just one small part. I painted the very left little storefront – and that took me an entire afternoon! This picture also shows the bridge before the rocks were painted.

Here’s the bridge with the rocks painted by church volunteers.

And here is what it looked like after Theresa did her magic with shading and highlighting . . .

Amazing, isn’t it? Doesn’t it look like you can reach out and touch real stones?
This is what I walked into Thursday morning. The big tall blank piece of wood was my project for the day. I didn’t take a picture of the itty bitty pen sketch I was to work from.

Me, up on the scaffold. Working up high makes it tough because you can’t just hop down, step back, and see what it looks like. Luckily Theresa would guide me so I only got down once.

The ‘almost-finished’ piece. Theresa added snow and cornerstones, which made it come to life.

Today we collaborated on this section. Getting the windows at the proper angles was a challenge, but I wanted you to see the in-progress steps. We’ll finish this piece tomorrow.

Just so you know, we just use chalk to draw the details, then slap on regular house paint. No overhead projectors. No elaborate grids. Just grab some chalk and go. It’s a far departure from my neatly organized artist paints and brushes, but it has been an eye-opening experience and a joy to work with another artist. More pictures will follow, as we progress.
Colleen