Kyle 3/29/10

Toward the end of my sketching Into the Woods, I asked my Facebook friends for suggestions for a new project. I got all kinds of suggestions, but the one that stood out the most to me was from my fellow contributor, Rachel, who suggested The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman. I remember reading it years and years ago in Undergrad and remembered that I enjoyed it. The next day I had some time to kill after work and stopped by the University Library to see if they had a copy. I couldn't put it down...

I'll go into the plot of the play later, but, just so you know, a good deal of it is set in a girl's boarding school in New England run by two young women in the early 1930s. The character I sketched today is Mary Tilford, a spoiled girl with a major chip on her shoulder. She bullies the other girls, has fits, fakes illness and is just generally a bad seed. It doesn't help that her Grandmother is very rich and has helped the two women start the school.

School uniforms are so very interesting to me. I went to Catholic School, but our uniforms were really casual, but some uniforms are very put together and rigid. I found a really great image of a young girl in her school uniform in the late 1920, which consisted of a blouse, tie, and jumper. Her blouse was plain white, but I decided that I don't want the uniform to be too foreboding, so I decided to go for a striped blouse in blue and white, with the tie and sash navy and the jumper a nice wool jersey. There are eight other girls with this same costume (Multiples! YAY!) and Mary's uniform would have to be doubled as it is supposed to look really dirty in Act Two.

I've never really sketched anything in the 1930s so this is going to be an interesting project! I may have to take more frequent breaks to work on some summer stuff (I'll keep everyone posted on that) but I'll try to stay as regular as possible!

Rachel 3/27/10

So, this is a totally new experience for me, this sketch. My father has loaned me a wacom tablet computer to experiment with, and i decided to try using it to sketch.

This costume design rendering is my very first shot at drawing anything more complex than an arrow or a moustache using a tablet computer in Paint.

First, let me talk a bit about the design itself.

Alma's wearing a suit here, inspired by the jacket in this fashion plate here. I made up a skirt to go with it, based on a similar asymmetrical skirt design from a fashion magazine print source i have. This is the scene where she runs out on her parents to go strolling with Dr. Buchanan, and winds up in the arbor rebuffing his advances.

I enjoy the idea that she'd wear a suit rather than a dress for what she considers her "first date" with him, that she would perhaps think it would draw a sharper contrast between her seriousness and "respectability," and the dissipated sensuality of his lover, Rosa Gonzales. (I can't wait to design Rosa's costumes, BTW.) And, in keeping with this conception of Alma, even though she's wearing a suit, she's carrying a bright rust silk parasol and has that swooping prow of a plumed hat on. Alma's accessories show where she's headed as a character, the side of her she keeps repressed, mostly. Her clothes say no, but her hats say yes, so to speak.

As for drawing with a tablet, i'm intrigued. I will continue to experiment and sketch with it (at least until i need to give it back to my dad), to see how i feel about it as a potential design tool. I enjoy that it still allows me to be "sketchy" to a certain degree using the pencil option and the smallest brushes, and that it's so easy to lay in color as you go. I also like that, in a practical sense, i could crank out these quick-sketch renderings and email them to a director in full immediate color without all the scanning and Photoshop-tweaking wankery that i do with paper sketches.

I'm not thrilled with how...i dunno, how "cold" this sketch looks to me, in that it's not got the same life and variety of line quality that a pencil has. Shading blows with this, too; i couldn't get it to look right at all.

As a production artisan, i know that i could look at this rendering (particularly supported with research) and make this hat, this parasol, this suit; but something's lost. I know what my sketching style looks like in pencil and in ink and paint, and i can kind of see my own hand at work here, but the quality of line is just flat out different and i don't know how i feel about it yet.

One thing i do love is, i figured out how to do a pretty good hand way easier with the Paint tools--hands are something i've always struggled with, and no matter how many i draw, i always find them difficult and challenging. With this drawing, i sketched Alma's right hand last, first using the largest round paintbrush and then going back into it with the smallest brush to do some lines to indicate the glove. It's probably the best hand i've drawn in a long time. Which i guess isn't saying much, since i only just got back into sketching after a long hiatus, but still. I'm sure that the more i work with it, the more i'll discover similar techniques that will make a more refined looking sketch overall.

I'm looking forward to experimenting more with this tool--i think the next rendering i do with it, i'm going to stick to greyscale and try to work more with the sketchiness, see whether i can produce something that looks to me more like my sketching style.

I'd love to hear from any designers who use a wacom tablet in their renderings, and tips and tricks or feedback or voice-of-experience impressions, etc.!

Kyle 3/25/10

And now, my friends, we come to the end of Into the Woods...but first, let me explain this last character...

The Mysterious Man is played by the Narrator (that's why his clothes have to be easy in, easy out) and has been living in the woods for years and years and years. We find out late in the first act that he is the Baker's Father who went kinda crazy after the Witch takes the new born Rapunzel and his wife dies of grief. He's in a kind of tunic that could be a ripped and torn period shirt that he went into the woods wearing. The baggy leggings are bound with braided vines (this is also the tie belt). He has a really rough short sleeve jacket made of patchwork leather and a jaunty scarf made out of a dead fox (super hot!). The hat is actually a really early medieval hat. I really liked it because it looks like an acorn...

I had a lot of fun with Into the Woods. I leaned a whole lot and did some pretty good drawings...I'm gonna have to paint some of these some day...I keep saying that, I know, but maybe I'll take some time and do it this summer...maybe with markers...

Eric 3/25/10

I've been out of the loop, blogosphere. I had a lot of homework to do the past week, none of which allowed me any time for drawing. But, Go, Dog! Go! is looking grrrrreat (promo shots are tomorrow, so I'll post some of those), and I got a script written for our spring break theatre school next week.

Although I should be resuming with Willy Wonka, I just got hired to do an emergency puppet for Jen Matthews who is designing Goodnight, Moon at Charlotte Children's Theatre. I have VERY little time. Since we don't have the option of meeting, I decided to do a sketch based on her lovely costume rendering. Just so we're clear: Jen's sketch is the colored one, mine is the pencil.

The actress playing the dish is TINY, so deciding these proportions was really important. Plus, I hope this sketch will begin a conversation about what this puppet looks like in profile. I learned from designing Pinocchio this past fall, that puppets have to be designed in 360, or it makes the crafting extremely tedious.

For the proportions, I compared the actress's measurements to the sketch, and drew out from there. I also pulled a tablespoon from the kitchen, because I never have actually thought about a spoon from the profile before.

So, we'll see if this sketch gets the ball rolling! Good to be back: I really missed blog/sketching.

Kyle 3/24/10

Ah, more costumes that are on stage for about 2 minutes...

In the second act of Into the Woods the two Princes (who married Cinderella and knocked up Rapunzel in the first act) happen upon Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, both snoozing away in a glass casket or tall tower, and change their minds about their relationships. We don't actually see these two drowsy dames until the last few bars of the last song and during curtain call...

Snow white is is a peasanty blouse with a kind of Germanic jumper and sash. She's got some flowers in her hair...those dwarfs had to do something!

Sleeping Beauty has been asleep for a long time. I didn't want to go medieval (saving that for the Witch and Rapunzel) so I decided to go Tudor. She is a Princess and the Tudor period is two and a half centuries away from the story time period...that's a long enough nap, in my opinion.

Often, these characters are done as almost direct copies of the Disney versions. That's a really really funny and cute sight gag and all, but I wanted to do something different...I don't know. These don't necessarily scream "Snow White" and "Sleeping Beauty", but, egh, sketching them was fun.

I was a little distracted as I sketched tonight. The Metropolitan Opera's new production of Les contes d'Hoffmann was on PBS and I was completely enthralled. It was absolutely gorgeously sung, and the costumes were really interesting....and then they showed previews for this season's productions of Carmen and Der Rosenkavalier and I peed my pants (metaphorical, of course).

Rachel 3/23/10

I decided that my next sketching project would be Tennessee Williams'
play Summer and Smoke.

I saw an excellent community production of this play when i was maybe about 14 or 15, and it has always remained one of my favorites. (Let's not delve into what that says about my psyche.)

It's set in an interesting time period for clothes--1914--when men are dapper and women are in that strange transitional phase between the pigeon-breasted wasp-waisted fin de siecle style and the dropped-waist bobbed-hair boy-bodied look of the 1920s. Ankles are starting to show as hems rise, yet bustlines are being more compressed and weirdly flattened. The very fashion itself echos what's going on in the head and heart of this play's protagonist. The script also has lots of hats and parasols (even as character-building plot-points), which are a personal favorite in my real-life day-job of milliner and crafts artisan.

One thing I admit I had not really considered when I stepped up to challenge myself as a contributor to this blog, was that not only would I be generating sketches, but also doing a lot of the preliminary research and paperwork for costume design. I mean, true, with a paper sketch-only project you don't have to concern yourself with budget or collaboration with a director or the rest of a design team, nor in this case do you have to address color palettes or swatching. But unless you are just doing life drawing of non-naked people, you do have to create costume plots to determine double-casting, quick changes, and so forth, and actually think about style line choices as a means of conveying character within the context of a given period or script.

So, I dashed off a costume plot last night and figured out how I'd double-up my cast to cover all the roles in this show. I did an admittedly somewhat cursory perusal of various period styles (thumbing through reference books from the shop library at work and image-googling fashions of 1910-1914), and spent some time thinking about the characters within the context of those clothes.

Today, I have a first sketch to share: Miss Alma Winemiller's first costume in Act I. It's the Fourth of July in a small Mississippi town, and she's just given a singing performance on the bandstand in the town square.

Alma is a study in contradictions--in fact, that's the premise of the play, pretty much, an exploration of how someone so at odds with herself or himself deals with being both attracted and repelled by another person equally splintered. Alma is a pastor's daughter whose mother is mentally ill. She's been to finishing school and people in town think of her as someone who puts on airs. She's a music teacher, leads an intellectual society for discussing poetry and literature; she considers herself artistically-minded and fashion-forward, but at the same time is devout in her faith and bound by the restrictive upbringing of a pastor's daughter. She craves witty repartee and flirtation, while at the same time being shocked by impropriety and ribaldry.

I looked at a lot of clothes from this time period and was excited about some of the interesting images of asymmetrical design elements and style lines--so many great asymmetrical closure and ornament details on the blouses and the cut of the skirts. All of Alma's costumes will employ elements of asymmetry, both as a nod to her desire to come off as sophisticated and to indicate her internal struggle between the two sides of her personality.

As Alma explores more facets of the warring sides of herself over the course of the play, I'm planning to push the asymmetrical elements more. Here she's just got the unusual single-lapel bodice and the prim little trios of buttons. And of course that amazing hat. Hats in this period are fascinating--still fairly large but tending toward the styles that became more popular in smaller form a decade later. Alma is just theatrical and dorky enough to think that this modified bicorne-almost-a-tricorne style would be just perfect for an Independence Day performance in the park.

It's clear in the script that the Winemiller women love their millinery, are regular patrons of the local hat shop (Alma's mother shoplifts a hat during the course of the play), and i like the idea that Alma takes the most risks with her hat styles.

So there she is when we first meet her, the preacher's daughter with her barely concealed crush on the rakish, damaged young Doctor John Buchanan...

Man, now i wish we were actually doing this show! :D

Kyle 3/22/10

Not too much to say about this sketch...He's the Narrator of Into the Woods. He comes on and tells some of the story, introducing characters and starting the stories going.

Because he's not directly involved with the story (until the second act, at least) his costume isn't set in period. I think of him as a grandfatherly type, reading the stories to the audience. The costume is total central casting Grandfather - slacks (with suspenders, of course), button-front shirt, cardigan sweater, beat up dress shoes, reading glasses. He doubles as another character during the show, so all this has to be easy off and on...

Speaking of the drawing - I'm quite pleased with the face...it is kind of an unholy marriage of Bill Black (Eric knows who that is...and we love him) and Stanley Tucci's child rapist character in The Lovely Bones (google it...you will be afraid). Despite the scary love-childness of the face, I really like it.

Now, back to Dancing with the Stars! GO NIECY NASH (and her juggly parts)!!!

Kyle 3/21/10

I'm very sorry for the lateness, everyone. I got the script for the show that I'm Coordinating/Designing(?) this summer for Great River Shakespeare Festival so I've been working on that. And doing some house work that's been hanging over me for weeks. To make up for my tardiness, I've done two sketches.

In Act II of Into the Woods we are re-introduced to Jack and his Mother, now rich from his thieving from those Giants in the sky.
They both have new clothes, fancier clothes, and look cleaner and happier all around.

They are both still in Polish peasant dress, but of a fancier cut. Jack's got a new shirt with a lace tie, a fancy floral embroidered silk waistcoat, velvet and corduroy striped breeches, a wool cropped jacket with velvet binding, collar, and cuffs. His hair is clean and combed. This costume would have to be doubled to look dirty later in Act II.

Jack's Mother is fancier too. She's in a new linen blouse with eyelet collar, yoke and cuffs, several lace trimmed petticoats, a silk over skirt with pretty lacework apron, an embroidered wool vest. With all that money from the Giants, she also bought some necklaces and a pretty flower trimmed hat. She's movin' on up!

I like these sketches, especially the one of Jack (I like the hen, OK!). There are only about 5 sketches left for Into the Woods (I think I could do 7 or 8 more, but I think I'm ready to move on). I might put up a poll on here and on the Book of Face to choose my next selection. I'm not sure if the show I'm doing for Great River Shakespeare Festival is gonna need sketches. I'm talking to the director this week at some point. I might sketch it anyways...we'll just have to see.

Rachel 3/20/10

We're in tech this weekend for I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me By a Young Lady From Rwanda, and i have a sketch of the second character in the play to share.

This is Simon, Juliette's writing teacher. He is a frustrated novelist, a mildly successful poet, working part time helping refugees like Juliette write creative pieces about their experiences. When he meets her, he's sweetly but frustratingly clueless about her situation, ignorant without malice, and his actions toward her are informed wholly by the inadvertant presumption of his European white male academic perspective. For her part, Juliette finds him unkempt and questions his writerly skill, even as she longs for a teacher to help her improve the craft of her writing in English, a language she is still learning.

You can see from the sketch--he doesn't tuck his shirt in or button it all the way up. He's a bit schlumpy in his corduroy pants and his fuzzy plaid cardigan and his almost-hip spectacles frames. He means so well, and he tries so hard, bless his heart. He does eventually help Juliette with her work, and in the process she helps him come out of his own shell.

And, that's pretty much it for this show: two characters who almost never leave the stage, one major look each...and, once this opens, i think i'm probably on to something new, a paper project. I'm thinking maybe Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke!

Kyle 3/18/10

This blog is so wonderful...

I get to design whatever the heck I want without having to worry about budget or time or the actual building of any of it!

This costume for Cinderella is what she wears at the beginning of Act Two after she has married her Prince and is now a Princess in the Palace. Unlike her Ball Gown, which was very simple and natural, this gown shows the other side of the early 19th century silhouette - that being a simple shape with luxurious fabrics and trims. She's covered in gold and jewels and has a heavy velvet court train lined with ermine. I want to show how uncomfortable she is in this finery.

This is one of those costumes that's literally on stage for about 5 minutes until she changes back into her peasant wear. But, like I said...I got all the budget, time, and labor that I need in my head.

Eric 3/18/10

Today I'll be starting exploring my upcoming production of Willy Wonka for Lexington Children's Theatre, which will go up in late July. We had our second design meeting today, and these are two roughs that I presented along with my character research.

This version of Wonka has the music from the Gene Wilder "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" with a more faithful adaptation of the book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl. We want to explore what a deliciously dangerous place this factory actually is. You can see some of the images that I am working from here.

The sketch of the four bad kids is the beginning of exploring archetype. Each kid represents not only a deadly sin (sloth, pride, gluttony and bitchiness, respectively), but also some of the evils of childhood (obsession with media, being a braggart, indulgence, and being a spoiled brat). Mike is way wired, and always keeps his electro gadgets handy. Violet wears her achievements on her sleeve, and is one of those incredibly overzealous Girl Scouts, who's not in it for community service. Augustus, is well, hungry, dirty and pleasantly plump. And Veruca is a version of Anna Wintour, mainly for her style and obsession with furs.

The squirrels are probably going to be puppets. They are all cute and sweet, until provoked. Then they transform into maniacal EVIL SQUIRRELS OF DOOM!

So many reasons why I just loooooove Theatre for Young Audiences.

Kyle 3/17/10

Like Cinderella's Stepmother, her Stepsisters have moved into the 19th century silhouette for Act Two. They're in some light cotton day dresses (well, really plain under-dresses with light, sheer-ish lawn embroidered over-dresses.) While they are blind at this point (they had their eyes pecked out by birds...awesome) but they're still dressed beautifully because their mom dresses them. I'm keeping them in the pink and mauve as their predominant colors - same as in Act One - keeps the musical theater comedy going.

There are lots of hair styles and great hats in this period. Its a little early for the REALLY extravagant Biedermeier hairstyles but weirdly beautiful things are already going on, usually with some sort of bonnet, tam, turban or day cap. It may be best for the sisters to have no hat, leaving that to the Stepmother, but just crazy hair. I sketched one with a tam and tassel, but that may not be the best choice to split up the pair.

Like the Stepmother, both sisters have capes and big bonnets for their escape from the palace.

I'm pooped...I hate the time change - it has really messed me up. I'm still not quite used to doing the time change after spending 3 years in Arizona where the time changes aren't observed. I'm adding that to the list of things that I really miss about Tucson...it ranks at about 327...

Kyle 3/16/10

In the second act of Into the Woods, as I've explained earlier, there is a silhouette shift for the Cinderella story line. Cinderella's magical ball gown has moved everyone into the 19th century - especially her "fashionable" Stepmother and Stepsisters.

We see them all together first in the palace with Cinderella. For the Stepmother, I've planned a sort of day gown of light-weight embroidered cotton with decorative rushing on the bodice and sleeves. The rushing is a motif that I'm carrying over from her Act One dress. She's also wearing a day cap with a crazy fun pleated ruff frill.

Later in Act Two we see Cinderella's family escaping from the palace. Over the day dress she's wearing a floor length cape with arm slits. It is trimmed out with rushing down the center front and around the arm slits and has a large rushed collar (all kind of like a coffin...spooky). The day cap is gone and has been replaced with a huge bonnet with a rushed brim and feathers. It is all muddied up and yucky.

There we go...now I have to get to bed. I've got another 8:30 am fitting in the morning. Blegh. I did get to go to a cool lunch talk given by Carl Kasell from NPR's Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me...it was so awesome. I'm a HUGE NPR junkie, so it was, like, the high point of my year...yes, I know, I'm a dork.

Eric is a Sad Panda

Hey Bloggers.

I'm in a push to tech next week, along with a myriad of other job duties to complete by the end of the week. But, since I have another Willy Wonka design meeting on Thursday, I plan on doing some concept sketches at work tomorrow, which I'll post.

Man, I really miss doing the blog. However, since I have two show to design over the next couple of months, I don't think I'll have any problems coming up with source material.

But now, to bed.

Rachel 3/16/10

I'm completely the new kid on the block around here (please note how I am hangin tough), so I guess I should introduce myself first.

I'm Rachel E. Pollock, resident costume crafts artisan at the regional/LORT theatre PlayMakers Repertory Company of Chapel Hill, NC. I also teach a series of four crafts artisanship classes in the Costume Production MFA program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Millinery/Wigs, Dyeing and Surface Design, Masks/Armor, and Decorative Arts), and have been blogging about the field of costume crafts at La Bricoleuse for over three years now.

I have two random connections to A Sketch A Day. I worked with Kyle in the crafts shop at Utah Shakes a couple-few summers ago, and we've stayed in touch online. And, though I've never met Jen Caprio, her tutu sketches from back in January were rendered for two of my grad students, Randy and Amy!

I've followed this blog since Kyle began posting about it on Facebook, and really love the concept, and now I have the opportunity to participate! Exciting!

This season, as part of the adjustments PlayMakers made to economic cutbacks, some of us on the production staff were asked to expand our responsibilities into design, to help the company stay afloat. I trained as a designer and have done a fair bit of design in the past, so I was glad to take on a show. As a result, I'm currently in the midst of the design process for I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me By a Young Lady From Rwanda, by Sonja Linden, which is going into tech this coming weekend and will close out the PRC second stage series (smaller plays in our smaller house, as opposed to the mainstage programming).

It looks like I'm going to be designing at least one show next season as well, possibly two, so I thought I ought to start stretching my sketching muscles now, just to be safe!

So, I present my first sketch, from the show I'm working on right now: Juliette's first costume.

Juliette is the "young lady from Rwanda," a refugee living in London who has written a book about the Rwandan genocide of which she is a survivor. At the beginning of the play, she is going to meet Simon, a writing teacher, whom she hopes will help her get her book published. The show takes place in 1999, five years after the genocide.

This sketch depicts Juliette's basic first costume, to which she adds pieces (such as a scarf or a cardigan) to indicate the progression of time or change of location. She's dressed up nice to go to her appointment. She is very neat and respectable, and her clothes and hairstyle are just-so. But at the same time, she is a refugee with nearly no means--all her clothes are second-hand and she's putting her outfit together from the nicest things she could find at the Oxfam, basically.

Juliette is described in the play as being very slim--she can rarely bring herself to eat as a result of her past trauma--and the actress who portrays her, Joy Jones, is tall and willowy. As such, I've drawn this sketch taller and more slender than I typically draw my renderings if I've no idea who's playing a part.

I've posted about the color palette and color selection and research process for this show over on my other blog, in case the play sounds interesting and you'd like to read more about the design process. That post is here..

Honestly, other than computer rendering of garments on croquis in Illustrator for a CAD class I took last summer, I've not drawn a costume design rendering in six years. I'm a bit rusty and it shows, but i'm very excited about an excuse to sketch again. It feels good to do this again, and I'd like to thank Eric, Kyle, and Jen for opening up their blog to one more sketchy designer! :)

Kyle 3/15/10

I took a break from getting all my tax documents together to do tonight's sketch...I also had a HUGE margarita earlier so this is gonna be a doozie...

I realized last night that I don't have too many sketches left for Into the Woods. I got a wonderful suggestion from Rachel last week for my next project but I'm still open for other suggestions. Maybe if I get enough I'll turn it into a poll or something. Could be fun.

Anywhoo...In Into the Woods Cinderella's Father is still alive and kickin (not like Disney at all!) which, in my opinion, makes Cinderella's story waaaay sadder. Her Father never lifts a finger to help her but we're never told why. I think that he's a totally unhappy drunk...drowning his sorrows and all that. His wig is a mess and he's got some pattern on pattern action going on - like he got dressed in the dark. I realized as the sketch was being scanned that I drew the totally wrong champagne glass for the period - it should be the short and squat kind rather than the tall flute...

Oh well. Drunks are so sad with their messed up wigs and mismatched clothes...they don't know what they're drinking out of...Keep those project suggestions coming!!

Kyle 3/11/10

I'm in Lexington sitting next to Eric as I write this...it was so cool to sit next to someone who's also sketching while sketching.

Pretty self-explanatory sketch...dude's a Steward to the Royals...its livery with gold braid trim and contrasting collar and cuffs...yep.

One of the really interesting parts about sketching with Eric is that his scanner HATES my sketches. They are waaaaaay too light. I use a really hard pencil so I don't smudge the drawing. Eric got it to work eventually with lots of computer magic...

Eric Presents Queen Elizabeth Bennett

Tonight's sketching was made all the more fun because Kyle is sitting ON THE COUCH NEXT TO ME! It was a lot of fun to see him work. While I am heavy-handed and messy, Kyle is detailed, thoughtful, and methodical. Actually, he's still sketching away in gorgeous detail while my hot mess of a sketch is being posted.

This sketch was for my good friend who requested to see Queen Elizabeth as Elizabeth Bennett. Now I suppose I should confess something: I've never read Pride and Prejudice, nor have I seen a movie of the same name. So basically I just got out the good old Kyoto book and picked an 1803 dress that I thought was pretty.

It wasn't until I scanned it that I realized how huge her head is in relationship to her body. Actually, I pulled the sketch back out, drew out her body and rescanned it. I've noticed that I'm having a hard time controlling proportion when I'm trying so hard to make a face look accurate. Perhaps I'm trying too hard, and I'm losing the forest for the trees.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Kyle and Eric combined sketching, the sequel.

Hey y'all.

I know it's been over a month-and I know this may be hard to believe, but I've actually been OUT OF TOWN this whole time, but for 2 days in February, during which I was in tech.

SO.

I abided by my rule-If travel-no sketch.

Today I started back into it and it was hard. I am a bit behind on a new incarnation of the 1966 musical, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's SUPERMAN at the Dallas Theater Center, and I'm trying to play catch up.

Not having drawn in a month, it was super challenging to get back into a rhythm. It took me two hours this morning just to get started. Then an hour and a half to get a lois lane rough, but then, it got better and better. I wish I wasn't so tired today from all the traveling or I'd stay here at the studio longer.

The challenge with this project is that we all have in our minds what Superman should look like because we've all seen so many incarnations. We're setting this in a very Max Fleisher-early comics world as opposed to the 1980s Chris Reeves, or even the contemporary shiny spandex Superman. The musical takes place in 1939 (the original was 1966 and took place then...) so we want Superman to FEEL like it's 1939 as well...so we're going to stay away from Shiny Spandex.

Kyle and Eric-I've been following while I'm away and you guys are rockin' it. I was so jealous that I couldn't get my ass in gear to draw while away away away...maybe on the next trip....

Missed y'all...

Kyle 3/10/10

I went kinda fast and easy with tonight's sketch. I was at the shop stitching a coat mock-up a little late - it is one good looking mock-up!

I like this sketch. The face is pretty good...and its just a straight forward night gown - easy, breezy, beautiful (Covergirl).

Tomorrow, I'll be on my way up to Lexington - sketching with Eric in between speed tailoring! I can't wait to see how far we can get on this coat! YAY!

Eric Presents Sandra Oh-Hara

Kyle, ask and you shall receive.

I consider myself a very fortunate young designer, for the amount of shows I'm getting to design currently. So, I'm quite happy to be doing sketches that are just pure fun for me. This one was no exception. Although I was pretty darn intimidated to draw something so iconic, I'm noticing that this project is allowing me to relax and just enjoy the process.

This is what I think is so hard in the drawing-learning process: just getting over your own insecurities and doing the work. I think many people think of drawing as something that God simply has bestowed on a privileged few. And while I do think that some are naturally adept at drawing (and I do not count myself as one), drawing is something that is accessible to everyone.

What I teach any student is that drawing is SEEING. So much of why I chose to do the celebrity project is to work on just that: seeing the contours of an individual face, studying identities, and seeing the differences in the billions of unique human combinations.

I hope that if you are a follower of the blog that you are also enjoying the process with Kyle and me. I'm going to keep asking, but if you are a regular reader, I'd love for you to contribute a sketch and introduce yourself.

I won't give up hope! I know someone will do it eventually!

Kyle 3/9/10

Hello, Friends! I'm about to reveal to you one of my "concepts" (I hate that word) for Into the Woods. Be patient, Friends, the sketch shall follow.

As you've seen and read, one of the themes I've decided to enforce from Into the Woods is that of class and status and showing them thorough the costumes. All the peasants are, well, poor. Some REALLY poor (Jack and his Mother) and some kinda middle class (The Baker and his Wife). Cinderella and her family are upper middle class with aristocratic aspirations. The Royal family is really rich. All are set in an 18th century silhouette.

Towards the middle of the first act Cinderella is given a dress to wear to the Ball by the spirit of her dead mother that lives in a tree in the woods. With this magical dress, she becomes part of the group of "Others" (the Witch and Rapunzel) who are not within the 18th century silhouette. The Witch and Rapunzel live in the past - The Witch wanting her past beauty back and Rapunzel being held back by the Witch. Cinderella, however, moves the story along - and her story looks towards the future - for the first act at least...

Cinderella shifts to the 19th century. Historically, it was a return to simplicity. Simplicity that the woods would give her; "Something natural" as Marie Antoinette would have said. It also makes her stand out to the Prince, who is really not as genuine as he seems in the first act.

Cinderella has set a trend that her Stepmother and Stepsisters will follow in the second act, be it on a grander scale.

I've been thinking more and more about why I'm enjoying doing this blog so much and I've realized that its because its forcing me to think though these shows with time that I might never be granted in the real world. Not that doing the actual sketching hasn't also been really really really beneficial. My drawings have gotten much better (I think, but you be the judge - in a nice way please), but it has been wonderful to think through both Into the Woods and Merry Wives. Let me know what my next project should be...that won't be for several weeks, but its nice to have some early suggestions!

Kyle 3/8/10

I really enjoy this sketch...those sassy evil stepsisters are, well, evil, but they've sure got some style.

Like I've said before, its very rare that I sketch without referencing a photo for faces and poses. Well, as you can see, there aren't much in the way of faces in this sketch, but I did pretty much copy the poses...and the shape of the gowns...from one of my great reference books (Dangerous Liaisons from the Met Costume Institute). I admit it...I'm a pose/gown copier. However, in my defence, the poses and faces I use as references are from photos, not drawings. Translating a photo to a sketch is different (not harder, just different) than from a sketch...so there.

While I copied the silhouette of the gowns I trimmed them differently and used different fabric patterns and textures. As for color they are scripted to be mauve and pink ("Never wear mauve at a ball!" - "Or pink!" - "Or open your mouth!") though that's a pretty open spectrum. The trims on both are lace. Florinda is in a stripped silk taffeta while Lucinda is in embroidered silk taffeta.

I'm super excited to share my sketch tomorrow...I won't be posting on Thursday or Friday though, folks. Sorry, but I'll be teaching (I'm using that term very loosely - more like guiding) a tailoring workshop at Lexington Children's Theatre and helping to build a coat for Eric's show! I still love you all though!

Eric Presents George Washington Clooney

I mean, do I need say anything about this one?

Eh, I'm losing my touch, though, I think. My pencil is much less fluid in my hand for some reason. A solid week of drawing should fix that right up. That might get these faces back on track, and not so gigantic.

I think I'm still SETC tired.

Eric Presents The Barefoot Blue Fairy Contessa

Helloooooooooooo Blog!

I just couldn't find the energy to draw during the craziness of SETC. My plan was to do three sketches today, but I'm not 100% I'll get there, although I am pretty excited about my next one (Kyle, yours is coming tomorrow).

To continue the series, I combined two of my favorite things: Ina Garten and the Blue Fairy from the Disney Sleeping Beauty. This is actually my second pass, as my first was just too rough. Leaving the drawing alone for four days actually does make a difference, but negatively so.

Somehow, I couldn't leave this one alone: I just kept going over my lines to excess. I always need to remind myself that it's not going to get BETTER if I keep drawing on top of the SAME lines.

During SETC, I gave a power point of my portfolio and included some blog work. The Celebrity Character slides were good for a nice round of laughter. Now that I've been encouraged, I highly doubt I will stop this (save for when I start sketching toward Willy Wonka shortly). Be warned! But please provide a suggestion, if the spirit moves you.

Kyle 3/5-6/10...sleep was needed.

So you know those days where you get home from a really long, frustrating, stressful days at work and you start to do something, say cook dinner or do your daily sketch, and all you want to do is cry, drink tequila, or fall asleep. Well, that happened last night. I got home and started to sketch (not getting very far) and then put a bagel in the toaster. I sat down...you know, just watching Wheel of Fortune...I woke up 45 minutes later...that bagel was cold. Then I went to bed.

I woke up 12 hours later and felt a lot better about the world...and I found that the sketch was a pretty good start.

Cinderella's Stepmother and Sisters have, by far, the most costumes in Into the Woods. Here we have the Stepmother's second costume, which is for the remainder of the first act. Its a lovely robe à la française, made out of peau de soie satin and lace. The lace is all the decorative rushing and poufs as well as the petticoat flounce. There is also loads of fly fringe along the edges of the rushing and flounces. Color wise, I'm thinking maybe a light violet with accents of yellow.

I'm super excited about some plans that I've made for Cinderella's ball gown and the second act...but you'll have to wait a few days till you find out...

Kyle 3/4/10

One more man for today and then back to the women...
The second Prince in Into the Woods goes to Rapunzel. Traditionally the second son in an aristocratic family will accept a commission in the military, usually rather high ranking...a rank that doesn't actually do any fighting. That's what I've decided to go for with Rapunzel's Prince.

Often the characters in Into the Woods are all mixed up when it comes to period. I've decided to keep everyone in the 18th Century besides the Witch and Rapunzel (I want them to be the others in the production). I'm more interested in the class/economic themes of the musical rather than the fairytale aspects. I'm trying to tie the princes together with colors and textures also.

The military clothing of the period is quite dashing - its no wonder Rapunzel wants to run away with him. Buckskin breeches, riding boots, buff waistcoat, satin coat with velvet turn backs and gold braid trim...pretty zexy. Any man is zexy with a pompadour hairstyle.

Kyle 3/3/10

Yesterday I made a suggestion to Eric of what he should do for his next sketch (I'm SOOOOO EXCITED!) and I asked him which Into the Woods character I should do next. He asked for the Wolf...so here you go...

One of the main issues with the Wolf is the hair and makeup. I looked at photos of lots of past productions and saw everything from face paint to masks to crazy things that I can't even explain. I looked at photos of real wolves. I looked at drawings of wolves. And then (light bulb) I looked at a 1985 Michael J. Fox cinematic masterpiece...yes, my friends, Teen Wolf. There was a little prosthetic makeup but the wolf effect came mostly from the hair...lots of hair. My design incorporates a full wig and major facial hair leaving the eyes and mouth free with a prosthetic nose piece. I don't want to disguise that fact that he's human. I think that's one of the most important aspects of the character. He's also got some nasty nails mounted on some flesh toned gloves.

The costume is a mix of 18th century and 19th century riding clothes. I originally though of a kind of modified fox hunting outfit. This has a little of that still going on with the jodhpurs (With a fur stripe down the side) and the tall Hessian boots. The 18th century comes back in with the waistcoat (pieced leather...like from animals and humans he's eaten) and the coat (which is a sort of whimsical bastardization of an 18th century military coat). The cravat and sleeve ruffles are a spidery lace that has been dyed to match a tone in the wig so that it looks like chest and arm hair sticking out. He's got some bows and stuff too.

My point is for him to look friendly but still smarmy and a little scary - like the child molester at the mall, rather than the one that hangs out at the grade school crosswalk...I just totally made myself throw up in my mouth a little bit....success, I guess.

As for the drawing. I like the face, but his legs are a little short. Its the proportion of the jodhpurs and boots that messed me up. Oh well. I still like it though.

Kyle 3/2/10

After two days of drawing pretty (or slutty) Witches, I though that it was about time I drew a man...but he's a pretty Man.

There are two Princes in Into the Woods. Brothers - one is in love with Cinderella and the other with Rapunzel. Cinderella's Prince always follows her from the King's Festival so he's pretty fancied up. You know, 18th century style; shirt, hose, breeches, stock, cravat, waistcoat, coat, shoes...pretty fly.

I've said before that I use posed images from my "photo morgue" when I sketch. In fact, I hardly ever sketch without a pre-posed image. I'm just not all that good at it. Sometimes the face is from one and the body from the other. In this case, I used an image of Louis XVI that I've had for a long time. The photo that I have stops before his hands so I had to make the rest up. The legs are a little short...but the effect is good. I usually find other images of the clothes, but in this case I just kinda borrowed it all from the Louis XVI image...especially the baldric. In the photo it is a really beautiful silk moire. Stole that...its a really difficult fabric to sketch and render (its a little easier to do in color). I don't think it looks too bad. Stole the metals also...its not stealing though. I borrow and choose. And, as Eric can attest to Bill Black always saying, "Designing is choosing."

Eric Presents Hamlet, Prince of Pattinson

Tuesdays are long work days. Why today, I did a myriad of activity, including singing songs from Mary Poppins, and cleaning ceiling dust of my bosses. You never know what a day of Children's Theatre will bring.

So my dinner time sketch is that of Robert Pattinson playing the role of Hamlet. I admit, I didn't nail the face: the likeness is thin, at best. But I'm still amused by the idea. I modeled the costume after a great research photo I found of Sarah Bernhardt.

I wish I had spent more time on his face, but practice makes perfect. Since I have faith, I'm still going to ask if you have a suggestion for another character, I'd love to hear it!

Kyle 3/1/10

HAPPY MARCH! That's two whole months of this fabulous blog...thanks Eric!!

I decided to go ahead and finish off with the Witch tonight. We've seen the ugly old Witch, the pretty showgirl Witch, and now we get the slutty nasty Witch. We see her first in this costume at the start of Act Two when Into the Woods turns really dark. A Giant has just ruined her garden and I want her costume to look like Medieval dominatrix lingerie. She was an ugly crone for years and years - now she is a total babe. She's re-discovering her sexuality. Lots of leather and lacing under a silk velvet robe lined in silk moire and edged with beaded fringe. The belt, which echos a Medieval girdle, is really a sassy cat o' nine tails whip.

She's hot...very Dita Von Tease....and you know what they say, "Sex sells." - This Witch is sellin' hard core.

Eric Presents Oprah Granger

Since the *only* suggestion I received was Harry Potter (thank you Erica S.), the first in the series of celebrity characters is Oprah Granger.

After drawing two straight weeks of only faces, coming back to the full figure was really, really difficult. I modeled the drawing after Emma Watson, which gave me this funny child-like proportion with an Oprah head. It's no great work of art, but I think it's funny. I'm really excited to keep this series up.

I don't think I successfully captured the right leg being behind the left. The whole concept of foreshortening is such a fine line: a little too much in the wrong way loses the perspective and makes for a poor drawing. After this unit, I am seriously going to hit feet and shoes hard core.

Still if you have a suggestion for characters onto which I should stick a celebrity head, I'd love to hear it. Also, I'm still interested in posting one of YOUR sketches this week.