A Sketch a Day

Rachel 10/18/10

2010-10-18T17:00:00.000-04:00

This rendering is of a barrister and a cartographer, who are supposed to be creepy ominous characters. I'm very excited about the freaky eyewear for the cartographer. Whoop whoop for the loupe!

Rachel 10/17/10

2010-10-17T09:28:00.000-04:00

At one point in this play, a small boy named Albert and his mother approach the protagonist, Louis de Rougemont, in the streets and are clearly big fans of his memoir (which has been published episodically in a magazine to great acclaim, then released as a book). The boy is super-excited to meet him and asks Louis to sign his toy boat. Later when Louis' reputation is in question, Albert denounces him as a fraud.

The players portraying both roles have to quickly become the characters and just as quickly assume other roles, hence the pieces creating them being limited to a hats and a sailor-like neckerchief.

Pencil, ink pen, marker, Photoshop.

Rachel 10/16/10

2010-10-16T08:24:00.000-04:00

There's a whole crew of a ship in Shipwrecked! (which should come as a surprise to exactly no one), and here's a rendering showing the captain, Jensen, and one of the sailors. For these, i have a couple of research pictures to share, because i think they're particularly useful to look at in context.

First, Captain Jensen: in talks with the director, he had a very strong image of Captain Jensen as being like Captain Haddock from Tintin. The cap and the peacoat and a turtleneck sweater are taken straight from that character's iconic look.

With the sailor, he's meant to be one example of what the crew will look like, which will be composed of two players and three Foley artists (who are normally off to the side making the sound effects in view of the audience but not onstage, but in this scene will join the players for a large crowd effect). In thinking about how to dress the collective five Sailors then, i'm going to be choosing pieces that evoke this research image:

Rachel 10/15/10

2010-10-15T15:59:00.000-04:00

There will actually be three Prospectors, but they didn't all fit on the size paper i had. Presume that the third will fit with these two as a sensible set of people. At this point, I'm really into this rendering process on this show, loving the opportunity to draw the same performers over and over in different characters! Can you track who's playing what? (Obviously the dark-skinned female actor is easy to track, being the only black woman and only person with dreadlocks.)

Same as the rest, pencil/pen/marker/Photoshop.

Rachel 10/14/10

2010-10-14T13:58:00.000-04:00

This rendering illustrates how Players in a stock base costume (trousers and shirt) might add pieces (hats, coats and stoles) to briefly "become" society women and upper-crust pedestrians in London.

This is one of a series i'm doing just to show the looks for various add-ons, but no one's draping from these renderings.

Same as the rest in this series: pencil, ink pen, marker, and Photoshop.

Rachel 10/13/10

2010-10-13T19:14:00.000-04:00

At the end of the play in Shipwrecked!, a group of scientists and academics surround the main character and bully him about his story, saying they can prove he's lying. So, they're going to be some scary intimidating academics, and they're going to wear those creepy clear masks that are vacuformed into face-shapes, but which really distort your features. I think people mostly rob banks in them.

So, this rendering is meant to represent that collective of academics and scientists, what their add-on pieces might look like (robe, mortarboard or tam). THese will be pulled, rented, or purchased costumes so no one is draping or patterning from this sketch.

Rachel 10/11/10

2010-10-11T07:25:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, i went again to the "Drawing in the Galleries" event at the Ackland Art Museum. Basically, once a month they have an open drawing session--you show up with paper and dry media, they give a talk about whatever the chosen subject is and how it fits into its larger exhibition, and then we all are given chairs and allowed to draw it for 2 hours. It's free, and a great way to just draw for the sake of drawing.

I've only been one other time (when i drew the Bishamonten statue i shared here), but i think i am going to make it a regular thing whenever the tech schedule at work permits--i love the opportunity to draw with others, to discuss afterward the challenges the subject permitted, to draw something akin to a live model, but yet so different, and the way that people visiting the museum otherwise react and interact. People come into the gallery we're in and look at our artwork, talk to us and ask questions, especially kids, which is always fun.

So, this week we were drawing "Leon," a life-size sculpture of an American Marine in the exhibit Counterlives, which is part of a trio of exhibits built around a recent acquisition of a bunch of Andy Warhol's Polaroid portrait photography. The sculpture was made by an artist named Oliver Herring, who is based in Brooklyn but has visited our campus before to do one of his performance art happenings called a TASK party.

Herring's sculptural work is carved in foam and collaged over its surfaces with photographs, so this life-size figure of a soldier reading a field triage manual weighs next to nothing and is covered in photographic prints to create its surface detail. Brandeis has a good closeup of the surface of the sculpture from when it was shown at the Rose.

I treat these drawing classes as an opportunity to practice costume design sketchwork, so rather than attempting to draw a perfect capture of the piece of art, i use the art as inspiration for how i might draw a costume rendering of a character for whom the artwork might serve as a research image. So, for Bishamonten, i chose colors for his articles of clothing even though the original was monochromatic; for Leon, i used it as an opportunity to address representation of pattern (the pixelized camo fabric of modern field uniforms) and draw a fairly straightforward costume in an interesting way--the foreshortened pose and the book as a prop.

In real life, i probably wouldn't take the time to do a rendering for someone who was playing a contemporary US Marine like this unless my contract stipulated that i had to draw every character look, regardless of whether a shop were making it to order or not. This costume would be completely purchased, and the look of it easily communicated to a director and design team with a research image rather than a rendering. So, it was cool to draw in this context as purely an exercise.

He's done with pencil, ink pen, and marker.

Oh, and in "small world" coincidences with respect to the art world, they had in this same gallery a photograph of Pieter Hugo's, an African photographer whose portraiture depicts Nigerian film stars in unusual iconic costumes juxtaposed against backgrounds of normal places in Nigeria (street scenes, forest/jungle locations, neighborhoods in cities, junkyards, etc).

In doing the research for Shipwrecked!, i'd been looking at his photography as a visual reference for ways in which we might imagine our cross-cast players looking when, say, we have a young black woman dressed up as an old white barrister. Since all the characters are played by only three people, the performers are going to frequently cross gender and cultural lines, and occasionally even species lines (one will play a dog for a while), and Hugo's work was my reference for how that could be done in an interesting and thought-provoking way. So, cool to see one of his photographs right there in the museum!

Rachel 10/10/10

2010-10-10T08:16:00.001-04:00

It's Queen Victoria! There is a prelim for this which, paging back through the blog, i see i didn't share back when i drew it. Maybe i'll post it later for comparison.

I did share the quick sketch i did of Shrek's Lord Farquaad, a fairly well-known short-statured character played on the actor's knees. Queen Victoria is another one of those. In Shipwrecked!, part of the play's structure calls for all roles to be played by the same three actors, so the production team has to find a way to have a male actor play this role believably, comically, or both. Knee-walking to evoke Victoria's short stature is the way we're going. She'll be played by a male actor who stands over 6' tall, so he'll have kneepads on and become little short roundy old Victoria.

Another challenge with this costume is, it's a super fast quick change, so the whole transformation has to happen super-speedily. The wig/veil/crown will be constructed-in-one as a headdress, and the body padding/bustle structure/gown will also be all connected together as well (though separable for cleaning purposes). I'll probably be writing up the production process on this garment over in La Bricoleuse once we begin construction, because it's going to be so intricate and interesting.

Rachel 10/8/10

2010-10-08T13:12:00.000-04:00

Yet more of Shipwrecked!

At one point, the protagonist, his dog, and the aborigine family who adopt them are set upon by rival tribespeople in war masks. This rendering shows those mask designs. We've already begun making them, and they are 3' tall!

I love this rendering because of the active poses, which are taken from photographs of actual aborigine warriors in regalia.

Pencil, pen, marker, and Photoshoppage.

Rachel 10/7/10

2010-10-07T12:48:00.000-04:00

This is Louis de Rougemont's second look, which i shared last month in preliminary format. Again, i had a cast list when i drew this one so the rendering has become more "realistic looking" without really any change in the design of the costume itself. Pencil, ink pen, marker, Photoshop.

Rachel 10/6/10

2010-10-06T12:32:00.000-04:00

Here's the final rendering for the character of Louis de Rougemont at the top of the show. Our cast list came out yesterday morning, and i did his rendering yesterday evening, so i was able to take into account the fact that the role will be played by Scott Ripley, and try to make the sketch resemble what he will look like in the costume.

It's cool to contrast this final sketch with the sketch i did for prelims on this show, posted back in early September. It's still the same basic costume idea, but i feel like the final really communicates the costume a lot more clearly.

Like yesterday's sketch, this was done with pencil, ink pen, markers, and Photoshopping.

Rachel 10/5/10

2010-10-05T20:34:00.001-04:00

So my show at work is going into preliminary production, which means i can share some final renderings. This one is of two characters who are aborigines who wash ashore on a deserted island, inhabited only by a man and his dog. I shared the prelims back in September, but now i've moved on to doing final renderings so it'll be cool to look back and contrast the difference.

In this show, there are a couple of Players who do multiple roles, so this rendering shows two of them in their base costumes, after adding wrap garments in custom created batik fabric to adopt the roles of Gunda and Yamba. Yamba carries a doll which represents her brother, Bobo.

This sketch was done with a combination of pencil, ink pen, marker, and Photoshop.

I've begun to blog about the technical process of the batik design in my costume craftwork blog, La Bricoleuse, which you can read more about here, in a post chronicling the design process of the pattern.

Rachel 9/12/10

2010-09-12T12:19:00.002-04:00

Another prelim for Shipwrecked, this one is for Bruno the Dog. One of the challenges of this play for the actors is, they play a huge range of characters so the more theatrical the character, the more dependent its realization is upon the performance. Though we could build an incredible dog suit or mask or whatever, that's not in the nature of the play, and it's not something that there's time to don or doff even in a quick change.

So, in this rough sketch you can see that Bruno is largely going to exist in the actor's performance, with his physicality only suggested by a bag-hat reminiscent of little pup ears and possible a tail rig (though that's on the table for being cut, since this performer has to drop in and out of Bruno and do other characters interspersed.

Rachel 9/9/10

2010-09-09T13:59:00.002-04:00

This is the second preliminary rough for the character of Rougemont in Shipwrecked! At the end of the play, he strips down to his bathing suit and rides a giant turtle. This costume has to be able to underdress his prior costume, and is meant to be pretty much an exact copy of this period photograph of a bathing costume.

Rachel 9/4/10

2010-09-04T08:09:00.003-04:00

This is the first in a group of prelims i'll share here, for an upcoming production at my theatre, Donald Margulies' Shipwrecked! An Entertainment. I drew them a while back, but didn't want to share them in this blog until i had some feedback from my director and had shared them with my Costume Director and shop manager. But, now everyone's seen them, and they aren't the actual final renderings either, so i feel okay about sharing them in here.

This is the character Louis de Rougemont, the narrator and star of the play. The play is him telling the story of his life, acting it out with the help of some Players. It's an incredible tall-tale about how he left home as a boy, survived a shipwreck on a deserted island, was discovered by some tribespeople, fell in love and married a woman from the tribe, etc etc etc. The story spans the time from 1860-1900, and the Player company all start the show as modern-day at the top, assuming period characters onstage. Rougemont though is clearly a dude from 1898, as you see here.

The play is based on a real guy (this photo here is the actual de Rougemont), who told his amazing story in a serial publication to the delight of Victorian England, and subsequently was disgraced as the Royal Academy denounced him as a liar and fraud, much like the many literary frauds who have come to light in the past few years (James Frey, JT Leroy, Nasdijj, Margaret B. Jones, etc).

This sketch pretty much is piece for piece the real de Rougemont, down to the three piece suit and fancy moustache. I did a series of background prints in Photoshop for these sketches (which are, again, prelims, not the actual renderings at all) using map elements, since one thing this blog has done for me is revealed how much i love creating sketches on an interesting background field.

I did the sketch first in a very light 2H pencil, then went back into it with a range of colored ballpoint pens, being inspired by the engraved political cartoons and book illustrations of the period. I may continue with this method for the "real deals," or i might get some actual nib-point pens and colored inks for the real ones. Haven't decided yet.

Regardless, here's Louis, and the ball that is Shipwrecked is in play!

Rachel 8/14/10

2010-08-14T14:14:00.005-04:00

This morning i went to an event hosted by the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill, called "Drawing in the Galleries."

Basically, it's a two-hour event (10am-noon) that's essentially an informal drawing class, and it's free. You show up at 10am with your paper and dry medium of choice--pencils, crayons, etc.--and are given a folding chair and ushered to a particular focus artwork. The host explains a bit about the work of art, its history and relevance with respect to the exhibition as a whole, and then off we go, drawing however you wish for the next two hours. I guess you wouldn't have to do the focus work if you didn't want to, but it was cool to draw right along with the 8-10 other people there.

So today's work was a part of the exhibit Fortune Smiles: the Tyche Foundation Gift--it was a 14th-century statue of Bishamonten, one of four guardian deities in Buddhist tradition.

The statue is monochromatic--all black--though at one point it was painted brightly. He held a staff at one point (now lost) in his right hand and holds a stupa in his left hand. He was standing on a struggling creature who represented the demon of Ignorance, but i didn't have room for him on the page, and wanted my piece to be more like a costume design rendering for a character called "Bishamonten" than a depiction of the statue itself.

This sketch was done with colored pencils and regular pencil, over the two-hour session. When the session stopped, i stopped, though i think for stage i'd go back and do a final black ink layer of outlines and some shadow-hatching.

I think the most challenging thing about doing this sketch was trying to figure out what layers of his attire matched up--what part of the bottom were the sleeves attached to, which were part of the suit of armor, etc., since the source piece was all one color. I think it's pretty clear though--i could generate a pieces list for this character based on this sketch now. It'd be something like this:

Armor: gorget/pauldrons
Tabard
Long robe with pointed sleeves
Belt with mask-like buckle
Sash and overdrape
Tiered-blousant trousers
Turned-up-toe shoes
Burning halo of fire

Lots of cool crafts for Bishamonten here! :D

It was a really cool event and i will definitely be going back for future sessions! I may also go sometime when they are not having the formal event, to see whether i can just sit and draw some other artworks in a similar fashion. It was great to draw from a source other than a photograph!

Rachel 8/8/10

2010-08-08T17:26:00.005-04:00

I've recovered from a month in Mexico, i'm back on contract at work, and it's time to get sketching again!

This is a quick rough of the character 'Lord Farquaad' in Shrek: the Musical, taken from this press photo. It's roughed out first in pen, then markered in basic color.

I hate the hands, but that's what i get in a rough--hands are my least favorite part of the human body to draw. Also, his face totally looks like Michael Jackson to me. But i guess that kind of works for Farquaad.

Without going into too much detail as yet, I've got a project on the horizon in which i need an actor to play a character on his (super-padded) knees, like Farquaad is played.

I thought it would be a good initial exercise to draw Farquaad from a press pic, but attempt to show in the rendering a hint of where the legs/knees hit inside the costume. Farquaad has a puppetty prosthetic short-leg-rig, and the actor's legs are hidden by black pants and a full cape with a "cape petticoat" to keep it hiding the shins/feet.

The Lion in Winter #5, 6, 7

2010-07-18T21:59:00.008-04:00

I finished the rest of my Lion in Winter drawings this weekend...

This was a really fun project. I really liked all of these sketches before I added color and now I like them even more. The markers were really fast and easy to use and pretty much look like the renderings that I do in acrylic paint. I wouldn't say that I'm a complete convert, but I'm sure that when an appropriate show (or any show) comes around for me to design, I'll use markers! Any constructive comments would be very much appreciated!

The Lion in Winter #4

2010-07-15T21:09:00.003-04:00

I had to play with the contrast and brightness quite a bit to make this sketch look more like it really looks on paper. The past ones look much brighter than they usually are.

I really like this sketch. I'm quite proud of the face (the proportions - not so much). I have always had a hard time drawing faces in 3/4 view. This one, though, is one of my more successful attempts!

Richard the Lionheart is Henry's second son. His older brother is dead and he is now heir apparent to the throne - at least in his and Eleanor's minds. He is described in the play as a rugged, manly, handsome soldier. He is strong and tough, overly masculine. he has had an overly close relationship with Eleanor in his youth. It is also implied that he is a homosexual by Philip.

Mmmmmhm...a ruggedly handsome gay prince. Who doesn't love that?

The Lion in Winter #3

2010-07-14T20:54:00.002-04:00

More marker adventures...The scanner has done funny things with the color on this one. The pink in the gown is more greyed in the actual sketch. The contrast is a little heavier too. Not too bad though...

Alais Capet is a French princess who has lived at King Henry's English court as part of a political deal between England and France. She is supposed to marry Richard, Henry's eldest son, but has been in an adulterous relationship with Henry for years. She is young, french and beautiful - like a ghost of what Queen Eleanor used to be.

I'm going for some bold colors in this production - colors that probably weren't around in the clothing of 1183. But these are royals - the characters are all larger than life. I'd probably also use some velvet which wasn't invented till the beginning of the 14th century and didn't appear in Europe till the end of the 14th century. Oh, well...I can do whatever I want...mmmhm.

The Lion in Winter #2

2010-07-13T19:44:00.004-04:00

I'm becoming more and more comfortable with markers as I uses them. I've always been a huge fan of Prismacolor's products - I have several large sets of their colored pencils and have used their pastels before. They have such great saturated colors. Sometimes, though, they are a little too saturated and bright.

For this character, Phillip of France, I wanted to use a bright color for his tunic. He's a King after all and a fancy French one - so I went with blue. Well that blue was a little too blue. Out came my old friend, French (HA!) Grey 20%. That solved it!

I made a mistake on the fur and hair, though. Not enough texture - I just used the fine point side of the marker - obviously not fine pointed enough! Fixing that in the next few...

Kyle Returns...its marker time!!!

2010-07-12T21:44:00.004-04:00

Hello, Duckies!!! Its been a busy, busy, busy summer. I returned home to Knoxville last week from Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, MN, where I assisted the wonderful Costume Designer Devon Painter on a beautiful production of Othello and designed the costumes for a fantastic small musical called The Daly News (I think I put those sketches up before I left, but I can't remember!). I did the Daly News sketches in marker which I hadn't used very much before. I loved how fast they were, but I didn't do very much with them - no real blending or layering - so I though that now that I'm home and have some free-ish time I should work a bit more in the fabulous world of markers. I've had these sketches of The Lion in Winter, one of my favorite plays hanging around since before the start of this blog so I thought, "Hey, why not throw some color on these!"

First things first - I rarely color directly on an original sketch. I get freaked out that I'm going to mess up and have to re-sketch the whole thing. On these I just went for it. I did these sketches on smooth finish 100lb Bristol paper. Its pretty much my favorite paper - very good to draw on, especially with the hard pencils I like to use. The markers seem to work OK on it. It soaks in a little too fast, but, as I've been told by the Marker Master, Bill Black, "They are MARKERS! Treat them like markers - they'll never look like paint!". I'm slowly getting used to the fact that there will be some streaks. If I were to do these again I would do them in a paper with an even smoother finish and possibly some color.

I did quite a bit of layering to grey out the colors. I think that there are three colors of marker alone in the little bit of underskirt, not to mention the pencil on top of the marker. I've very quickly learned that the french greys are my favorite things ever. I'd love to get the full set - I've only got 20%, 40%, and 60%. Brick Beige is also amazing for skin tone - I need to get a few more skin bases though...not everyone is Brick Beige colored!

I like the sketch a lot. When I did them I was focusing on faces and drapery more than anything else - some of them are a bit out of proportion - especially some of the men you'll see later. I'll try to post them in order that I did them so you can see the progression of my marker journey. Its a pretty small show - only 7 characters, so I'll be done by next week and then see what I should do next...maybe color a different show. I'd like to get pretty comfortable with markers...while some frown on them, they are so easy and fast to use!

Rachel 6/16/10

2010-06-16T15:12:00.003-04:00

Well, i've been on hiatus from sketching or typing much due to a bad flare-up of carpal tunnel--i've had sporadically recurring RSI in particularly my right wrist since 2005, and managed to aggravate it with a combination of intense periods of typing too much, writing longhand, and sketching, topped off with overly-vigorous bowling. (I wish i were joking.)

The main lesson here is, if you don't have RSI yet and you are a costumer, please be mindful of taking regular breaks and resting your hands and wrists, and don't ever work somewhere that won't allow regular breaks or makes you use ergonomically-harmful cutting equipment or table heights.

But, to get off my soapbox, i did a sketch today! I was literally about to climb the wall wanting to draw something, and i remembered something i did back when i first had the initial bout with this injury: left-handed artwork. (I'm a right-hander.) I did a couple of paintings that first time out with brushes stuck down inside a wrist brace, then some with my left hand. I thought, why not try that again?

So, i'd collected a couple inspirational images i wanted to sketch from of dancers, in keeping with my overall desire to work with drawing figures captured mid-motion doing expressive action. This drawing was inspired by an Oya orisha celebration dance done by the Afro-Cuban Arenas Dance Company. Check them out here (my lady is 3 pix down)!

Totally drew this with my left hand, first using a red ballpoint for roughing it out, then going back over it with a navy marker. I kind of wish i'd stuck with the thin lines and gone back over it with a black inkpen or really anything with a smaller nib. But whatever, live and learn, and i DREW SOMETHING and it doesn't suck, even left-handed. So, hooray.

Eric 6/15/10

2010-06-15T20:58:00.000-04:00

Wow... so, it's been what? Two weeks? Eh, it's the summer. I'm sorry for all of our dire-hard readers, but summer time in the theatre is rarely down time.

Here is a sketch from the Isaac Murphy play we're doing this fall at LCT. I decided to only post one, but here is a link to the rest of the sketches.

This sketch is of one of the Gossip characters in the play. It's a really interesting function for a character. She drives much of the story through her rumors and exaggerations. From her and others we learn about Issac's changes, his failings and his perceived successes.

As a concept, there are eight actors to accomplish many characters. They never leave the stage, and the shifts in characters are almost instantaneous. Therefore, I wanted to create a world based on 1890 silhouettes, but simplified and layered, so that we can move through the costumes easily. In some ways, this is much like the design I did several years ago for The Laramie Project. Same deal: eleven actors play MANY characters, all within moments.

In terms of sketching, I'm decently happy with the work, but I'm seriously impressed by my own speed. I'm still in my old mentality that a sketch would take me forever. Now I'm knocking them out in fifteen minutes, tops. Sure I could slow down and probably make fewer mistakes, but I'm enjoying the freedom of expression.

So, until next time my faithful readers (whenever that may be).

Eric 6/1/10

2010-06-01T20:35:00.000-04:00

So, yeah, I took some time off of the blog. With the new job at LCT, I allowed myself a bit of a sabbatical in order to focus on the transition. But now that it's June, and that I have two shows to get designed over the summer, it's high time to begin the sketching again.

Today I had my second design meeting for a new play by Frank X. Walker about the jockey Isaac Murphy. What I'm exploring is a modernized 1890's silhouette that is stark, mutable, and simple. My primary research image comes from the Kyoto book, so I don't have it scanned in yet. But I also found this great image of Harriet Tubman, in a simple, strong silhouette. That's what I decided to sketch tonight.

Well, it's not easy picking the pencil back up after an extended rest, I'll tell you that. My hand is actually sore from the stress of gripping the pencil too firmly. I think I made some proportional mistakes, and the face isn't a good likeness. But, I'm relaxing back into my good habits, so too much pressure is a bad thing.

It's good to be back! I hope I keep it up!

Rachel 5/21/10

2010-05-21T11:44:00.004-04:00

I'm really stepping outside of my comfort zone today with this sketch of a ballerina.

First off, i have low confidence when it comes to rendering effective-looking ballet poses. I never took ballet, know little about it as an art form (despite having worked as a stitcher for two nationally-recognized ballet companies), and don't enjoy watching it. So, drawing ballet costumes is like the artistic equivalent of trying to catch fish with my bare hands for me.

And secondly, this drawing is huge: 2' x 3'. This past weekend i bought a Tiffany style lamp at an antique store and the shade got wrapped in these massive sheets of paper. I prefer to draw on 11" x 17" paper or smaller, so this was another challenging element. I taped the massive piece of paper to the door of my studio and drew on it standing up. This sucked, because it made the markers i used get streaky quickly as the ink ran down the wrong way inside thanks to stupid old gravity, and my arm got tired windmilling around drawing on a perpendicular surface. I'm still feeling the strain of an overenthusiastic bowling incident from last weekend, and this didn't help.

I hate this drawing. It's hard for me to see scale and proportion on a piece this size, so from a distance i see all these flaws like how weird-shaped her limbs are and how unappealing i find the line quality of pens i like when i'm using them on smaller pages. Still, it's good to push yourself outside of what's familiar, so i think this was a valuable sketching exercise. I think i'm going to just recycle the rest of the big paper pieces though and go back to my favorite scale. Bigger = not better in this case.

In the interest of presenting something i *am* proud of (by proxy), here's an image of the costume i was attempting to render here:

This tutu and ballet bodice was constructed by Amy A. Page, a recent (2010) graduate of the Costume Production MFA program in which i teach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The ballet bodice and tutu are one of the collection of projects that constitute the masters thesis in our program. The head of the program, Judy Adamson, teaches the incomparable tutu production methods practiced by the recognized master of tutu construction, Barbara Matera.

The students propose a tutu design for approval and then construct it--sometimes they do it in tandem with a company such as Carolina Ballet, but this year the two grads selected independent designs of their own choosing. Amy's classmate, Randy Handley, made a tutu featured previously on this blog, the second sketch down in this post by Jen Caprio from back in January! I thought it might be a fun project to sketch Amy's "ice queen" tutu and bodice, and use it as an excuse to try rendering a dynamic ballerina pose--that way, both grads would wind up with their tutus on here.

In retrospect, i should have chosen just one challenge here, and done it at normal familiar dimensions instead of huge. Not only do i see scale issues with the dancer's limbs, but also in the scale of the motifs on the tutu plate. To attempt some objectivity, it's ok, but i'm betting this isn't one anybody wants for a portfolio. :)

Rachel 5/16/10

2010-05-16T16:29:00.002-04:00

I'm visiting my parents in east Tennessee, but I found a bit of time to sketch today while my mom read a book and my dad did some garden-puttering. It's possible that this is my last set of mask renderings. I'm fairly sure which six i want to do out of the twelve i've drawn thus far...

These are the Captain and the Doctor, aka Il Capitano and Il Dottore. I really love these guys! It's really cool how a lot of these stock characters have some conventional or standardized features, but are still so manipulatable in terms of imposing your own style on them.

Il Capitano is either proud/conceited or angry/piratical; i obviously picked the angry/piratical version. I'm envisioning his stache as being some kind of actual fur or hair so that it has some movement.

Il Dottore is based on the birdlike plague doctor mask in this case, but i also wanted to evoke the worried, befuddled old-man-like quality that some Dottore masks i've seen have. I'm undecided about his eyebrows--i've seen some great Dottores with fluffy fiber brows, which might be a fun element to add to him.

Now that you've seen all twelve renderings of these, which is your favorite?

Rachel 5/14/10

2010-05-14T14:07:00.002-04:00

This may be my last one for a while, since as soon as i post this, i'm off to parts west for vacation and the SPESA Expo. I'm taking my sketchbook and pastels with me, as i'm hoping to finish preliminary sketching by Wednesday so i can start the maquette sculpting of whatever the final mask designs wind up being. I don't know whether i'll have time to photograph and write up any sketches i do between now and then though. We'll see.

These two masks are the Young Lovers. I'd been putting off doing them because i find the idea of their expressions hard to conceptualize--they need to be sort of blank slates, so the performers can indicate a huge range of emotions, and they need to be young looking, attractive-looking, perhaps innocent even.

For my own part, i also wanted their features and face-shapes to be as neutral as possible, so they could be worn by performers of any ethnicity or body-type without a disbelief-suspension issue of say, a mask with extremely bony features on a stocky or curvaceous performer.

I've seen a lot of these Young Lovers masks with the dimensional swirls on the cheeks, and i love that element so i retained it in mine. I also decided to employ a lip shape that feels more childlike than the angular peaked cupid's-bow lip shapes in many of my other mask sketches.

I am fairly certain these are two of the ones we'll actually be making; i'm considering hosting a poll over in La Bricoleuse to vote on the other mask styles, once i'm done sketching. That might be a fun way to bring some more community involvement into this project, soliciting input on the final grouping.

Rachel 5/12/10

2010-05-12T17:35:00.003-04:00

Today's a weird one, inspirationally speaking. I had some vague ideas about wanting in my next pair of mask sketches to explore the ideas of suggested hairlines along the top edge, and whether incorporation of upper teeth could work. I also wanted some definite specific faces to influence the structure of the features.

I think it's fairly clear that the mask on the left was based on a young Billy Idol's iconic sneering expression and widow's peak. The mask on the right is a bit more obscure: it's modeled on Steve Buscemi with his buggy eyes and thin upper lip and receding-pattern hairline.

I'm happier with Steve as a general Commedia mask design--if you know it's based on him, maybe you kinda see it, but he could be any older character of whatever gender and could display a range of emotions; Billy is clearly and obviously Billy to me (does that make me old?) and less versatile of a mask. I am pretty sure i don't like teeth on character masks that aren't of the stupidity-as-comic-relief zanni variety, but i'm willing to be persuaded otherwise if any of y'all feel differently on that topic.

I know i'm really busting them out right now in terms of not taking much downtime between sketch posts; i'm trying to build up a cushion because i'm headed out of town on Friday for a book release party, then a family visit, then the SPESA EXPO 2010, so i'll be incommunicado for nearly a week.

SPESA proves to be pretty exciting--it's the Sewn Products Equipment and Suppliers of the Americas exposition, and will have miles upon miles of industrial sewing equipment demos, fabric and trim vendors, production companies and dye services, printers, mills, software developers, you name it! I've never been before, and am very excited to attend this one. I'll be reporting on it over in La Bricoleuse, which you can now like on Facebook if that's how you prefer to aggregate your blog consumption.

Rachel 5/11/10

2010-05-11T19:57:00.002-04:00

Two more mask designs, again in oil pastel.

For the one on the left, i was going for an older female face, with a sort of wry happy expression. The one on the right is based on this really beefy bald man's face i found, in which he looked sort of ominous and sad.

I'm not as happy with either of these as with yesterday's masks--these look kind of superhero-ish to me. Or, maybe supervillainy. I saw Iron Man 2 yesterday so maybe that is subconsciously influencing my perception. I enjoy drawing these, and using the oil pastel medium, so i will probably keep doing them in variations on this theme until i get six i want to actually make for real.

I'm open to suggestion, if anybody's got a challenge for a facial expression or a stock Commedia character to render...

Rachel 5/10/10

2010-05-10T20:22:00.003-04:00

Back to Commedia mask designs.

I did these two sort of intending them to be female characters, but they don't look particularly gendered at all. They're done in oil pastel on the same long sketchpad that i used for my prior mask sketches. I did a hint of a wearer's lip/chin in these, and i think they kind of help with scale.

I'd forgotten how much i LOVE working in oil pastel, how fast it goes and how awesomely blendable and stripped-down it can be. It really lends itself well to these Commedia mask designs, in that, i need to be thinking in broad expressive planes and shapes, but the blending and smudging properties of the oil pastels give the simple shapes a lot of depth and interest.

I was just sort of farting around with facial variations, but i like these two so much, they might actually wind up being two of the real deals. We'll see....

Eric 5/9/10

2010-05-09T20:43:00.000-04:00

After a wonderful weekend with my parents (and no, I couldn't talk Mom into sketching for the blog), I spent today working on the final sketches for my last LCT show, River Rat and Cat. Since there are only three sketches, and I had all day, I thought it would be no problem to knock them all out. WRONG!!!

I love painting in acrylic, but I forget how painfully slow I am with it. If I were to be doing more of them, then I'm sure my pace would pick up. However, I soon remembered how long it actually took me to paint my thesis project from UT, The Love of Three Oranges, especially since there were over forty of those.

But, I still find the whole process satisfying. And since they're not due tomorrow, I can still get them all done on time. What I like so much about acrylic is the opacity. Since I'm a bit of a random thinker when it comes to my sketches, I tend to not always think "light to dark" as is required in watercolor. With acrylic, your highlights can come last, and that's all right. I also like the color saturation acrylic can afford.

Also, due to the tea dyeing, my paper is pretty warped, so it didn't scan well.

Here's to many hours of painting ahead!

Rachel 5/8/10

2010-05-08T12:52:00.003-04:00

It's Cyndi Lauper! Man, did i love her so much in the 80s. I remember saying to my mom that i was going to do my hair like hers, and her saying, "No, you're not." Guess that's perhaps part of why i spent the 90s with my hair every color of the rainbow.

I really was still feeling the "background inspiration," but all i could find in the house that had a decent value level of background noise was this page of classifieds. So, i thought about who newsprint reminds me of, and Cyndi Lauper came to mind and her excellent newsprint tutu from the "True Colors" video. She also was known for dynamic poses in her photo shoots, so i decided to go for her as a subject for today's sketch, which is based on this photo.

This one is about 95% colored pencil, 5% marker for the outlines and name label. I cannot complain about this sketch; i'm totally pleased with the outcome. So much so, that i might have to come up with some other appropriately zany 80s popstar to draw on some more newsprint...

Rachel 5/7/10

2010-05-07T07:57:00.004-04:00

One of the projects i'm doing this summer is creating a set of Commedia dell'Arte masks. I've done a bunch of research and have planned the production calendar, spec'ed out the materials cost and labor estimate, and have verbal agreements with a couple of assistants for the matrix sculpting and actual production work. What's left to be done before we start is to settle on the designs for the masks themselves.

I was really inspired by the mask designs of WT Benda (whose work was exhibited at USITT this year) and have always admired the work of Alyssa Ravenwood in this area. So it was with those two artists' masks in mind that i began these ultra-preliminary sketches.

This sketch is the very first two hints of breaths of ideas, absolutely not to be considered the final designs at all. I wanted to try drawing two front-view mask concepts, an angry character and a worried/sad character, using some of the conventions of Commedia mask design--deep lines of hyperbolic expression, planar/bulbous feature exaggeration, and monochrome colorization.

I am undecided about whether i think it's helpful or distracting to draw a human lower jaw into these designs, as that's not part of the mask itself. I'll do that for the next set and see how i feel, but i'd love input as well. If you were sculpting half-masks from a design rendering, do you want to see the face of the wearer under there in the design, or just a couple of style marks like a chinline and lipline?

For an actual rendering (further down the road) i'd use this long sketchpad to create a single mask design, front view on the left and profile on the right, since i'll have two other sculptors on this project in addition to myself, and want to make sure we're all working on the same metaphorical page, so to speak.

Pretty excited about this project!

Eric 5/6/10

2010-05-06T15:46:00.000-04:00

Since I had to come home and let the garage door repairman in, I decided to get my sketch done. I can't complain that he's taking a long time, especially since I had a chance to get sketched.

One of my favorite costume design history/art books is The Elegant Beast. My random explorations this week suddenly reminded me of this book. I think this is why I've been having so much fun with these sketches.

Today is a Kitty Samurai. Why? Because Amy suggested a samurai, and I love my four darling, angel cats. I don't think I did as clean of a job as I have done this week, mainly because I wanted to make sure I got it done before I had to head back to work.

Tomorrow my mom and dad are coming to visit for the weekend. Whether she knows it or not, I'm making Mom sketch and post with me tomorrow. Get ready, momma!

Rachel 5/6/10

2010-05-06T08:14:00.003-04:00

Today's contribution on my behalf is back to the computer. This is a sketch from a paper project of Lend Me A Tenor, from something like 1994. The originals weren't colored in, so much like with the Mrs Linde/Doll's House sketch, it seemed like a good candidate for messing around with digital color application.

This is Diana, the sex-kitten opera diva, in her evening ensemble. She's supposed to seduce Tito in this dress (though if you know the show and its mistaken identity plot snafus, she actually throws herself at three different characters, all wearing identical Othello costumes), so it had to be drop-dead sexy, but Diana is also a fairly heartbreaking character, because her promiscuity is linked to her tenuous self-image.

She has the typical dichotomous nature of narcissism/self-hatred that plagues a lot of famous aging stars. She uses young lovers like tissue to big herself up, even as she fears getting older and losing her sexiness; she wants her big break into international opera, and believes this may be her only chance for it, to seduce Tito and be catapulted into fame on his shirttail, so to speak. So, she has the absurdly hourglassed boned/girdled understructure of 1950s wiggle-dress wearers, but she's chosen a soft sea green color to contrast with how scarlet-hot she comes on to the mens in this outfit.

So, the sketch. It's okay--i was able to use the color palette i wanted, and i think i conveyed tolerably well that the entire upper portion of the gown is supposed to be made from a shiny satin, while the skirt is piles of diaphanous net with some sort of beaded tutu-plate-esque applique at the join between gown/skirt.

But, after the past few days' worth of paper sketching, i hate this. It feels dead to me. I realize that i can get better quality work (meaning, less pixelated line quality) from more sophisticated image programs other than Paint. Trouble is, the computer i have Photoshop and Illustrator on isn't this tablet computer (laptop with a screen that flips, not a peripheral tablet i could use with other computers i don't think?), and the software's work's, so it's not like i can get it installed on this borrowed computer of my father's.

Perhaps i will invest in the peripheral, and return to digital sketching later in a better program context. For now though, all my past few days' worth of marker renderings have served to do is make me want to do more analog, and chuck digital exploration for the time being.

Eric 5/5/10

2010-05-05T20:33:00.000-04:00

I went to Centre with an amazing talented artist (well, many, many talented artists for that matter) named Lisa Brown (only one was named Lisa Brown, the others had different names). You can check out some of her work here. I was always in awe of how amazingly well she could draw. Lisa had a fabulous knack for drawing her friends in both human and animal form (I was a Gay Pride Lion in some of her sketches).

Anyway, so when I asked for random ideas to draw, Lisa suggested a dragon. Since her avatar/alternate reality/fantasy cartoon character is a dragon named Wertle, I had to pay homage to Lisa by drawing Wertle as a lady in waiting.

I have to admit that it's really intimidating to imitate an artist whom I know and respect through the very medium in which she excels. Wertle is made of simple lines, but Lisa's ability has always been to take those very simple shapes and create instant, likable, and expressive characters. This is something I am trying to improve upon in my own work.

The dress I used as inspiration came from a 14th C. French engraving called The Suicide of Lucretia. In the work, Lucretia is stabbing herself and ruining her lovely gown. I thought it was a bit too much to kill off Wertle the first time I drew her.

I plan on keeping up with the random sketches. Although, I think I like drawing real people with fantasy heads. Not gonna lie, but I am sort of in love with my sketch from Monday.

Rachel 5/5/10

2010-05-05T07:32:00.004-04:00

In keeping with the theme of using highlighter pens, Sharpies, and interesting cardboard salvage, here is a design rendering for the character of Lydia Languish in Sheridan's The Rivals.

This background is from the packaging for a bicycle helmet, and much like with the Yoox box i used for the Hair designs, i couldn't bring myself to throw it away. Unfortunately, there was only the one piece of the box big enough to draw on for a rendering, so this will likely be my only sketch in this series.

As with the Hair series, i've been looking to these projects as straight-up rendering practice rather than exercising design choices. This one is based on the beautiful photograph of 19th century actress Elsie Leslie in the role, taken by a woman i truly admire, pioneer photographer and milliner Zaida Ben-Yusuf.

I became aware of Ben-Yusuf when doing some research into the documentation of historical millinery methods, as both she and her mother Anna Ben-Yusuf wrote extensively on the methods of construction of late 19th century hat styles. If you are interested in learning more, start with Frank Goodyear's Zaida Ben Yusuf: New York Portrait Photographer; and, many of you probably already have seen her mother Anna's book Edwardian Millinery. They both were lifelong milliners and millinery instructors, in addition to Zaida's work as a photographer and travel writer. Fascinating ladies!

Anyhow, Lydia's impulsive and silly, so she's got these pink and orange value levels. I deviated from the original costume of Elsie Leslie's by making her sleeve ruffles pleated, and making the fabrics used in the skirts and overrobe crispier and loftier. Leslie's underskirt looks to have some kind of delicate embroidered net or lace in a knee-deep ruffle, and i hate cutting the lower half of the body off there with a horizontal line, so i went with a plain wide striped taffeta. The overrobe is some kind of large scale rococo brocade, like the motif of the background print.

Also, what i wouldn't give to make this hat. I wonder, now that i consider it, whether Zaida didn't make the one in the picture. I have NO documentary evidence to confirm it, but i'd be surprised if she didn't do stage millinery for the actresses whose portraits she made.

This one was a great time to draw. I'll be moving on to something else...what, i don't know. I realize i got all wooby and sentimental yesterday about saying goodbye to Hair, but today, i'm all, "Whatev, this is good because it's forcing me to be detached from my subjects." Maybe that's just my mercurial nature. So we'll see, what will tomorrow bring?

Eric 5/4/10

2010-05-04T21:41:00.000-04:00

The randomness continues....

Last night, Rachel suggested that I draw around the idea of hillbilly opera. I loved that so much, I just had to do it. I took the classic version of Brünhilda and took her to the hills. Instead of horns, she wears a helmet of Bud Light bottles; instead of a shield, she wields a might box of Pizza Hut. Her full length skirt is a pair of torn jeans that emulate a skirt. So on and so forth.

I'm totally on board with the random and weird right now. It's keeps the drawing fun, fun, fun!!

If any of you readers consider yourself a Hillbilly and find this offensive, well, I don't know what to tell you. I know I did nothing but an overlapping smear of stereotypes. So for that, I hang my head in shame, shame, shame.

Rachel 5/4/10

2010-05-04T08:09:00.004-04:00

Thus ends the saga of Hair, with a doubled-up rendering of the characters of Claude and Berger.

As with the Dionne rendering, i approached this one as sketching practice rather than design--it's been a long time (like, 15 years) since i drew two characters in this kind of OTT musical-theatre ack-shone pose. Literally every rendering i have done in the intervening years has been single-character in a fairly sedate "drama" pose. So, these are essentially Michael McDonald's costume designs for these characters in the current Broadway production (link goes to the reference pic i used to create the sketch).

Again, my thinking is that, because Hair is a show that I can really only envision in terms of being serendipitously designed/coordinated--largely shopped/altered, found/thrifted--just by its very nature, I've been approaching the renderings as characterization guidelines rather than as something i'd hand to a shop foreman and expect people to drape right off them. (Though, arguably, someone could sit down and pattern these two men's jeans from this sketch.) In fact, i could probably spool out some elaborate art-language justification for why, in homage to the values of the script and characters and historical subculture it dramatizes, that production method is imperative. But, that's wankier than i intend to get at 8am. Imagine it in your minds, that i have done that.

These boys are green, partly because that was the color i didn't use for Jeanie and Dionne's renderings, but also because they are so full of life. I'm happy with almost everything about this sketch--the figures, the composition, the cartoonish style, the way the background works with the layout. If this were a real show (and i had infinite supplies of these boxes for renderings), i'd redraw it so i could rework Claude's facial hair to be a bit less D'Artagnan-y, but when you work solely with marker, there's no going back.

The show as i read it is really about Claude's tragic arc--he's this totally confused suburban kid that i read as being on the gayer side of bisexual, crazy in love with Berger and also crushy on Berger's sort-of-girlfriend Sheila, both of whom are willing to indulge in free-hippie-love encounters with him on occasion, but see him only as what kids these days call a FWB. The way i interpret the script, he then essentially gets drafted and sent off to Viet Nam to take part in the horrific war and ultimately die (though i think you can argue that is "just a bad trip" and doesn't really happen to him, too).

Berger is this grunty sex-driven hedonist, whom everyone in the entire cast has probably hooked up with at one point at least. He's massively charismatic, good-looking, loud, confrontational, but not cerebral; he's part of this movement because he can drop out of school, be an asshole, do a bunch of drugs, live in the park and get laid all the time, not because he actually cares about peace, love, and understanding. Claude is his best friend, inasmuch that he has one, and he'll "do it if it feels good" with Claude, but doesn't have the significant depth of romantic love that Claude (as i see it) feels for him. Berger cares about Berger.

I chose this pose because i feel like it illustrates that dynamic between them really well, yet also conveys the whole exuberant-hippie-vibe of the show, in that "We just got finished singing 'I Got Life!' OMG Yay!" sense.

It's funny, but i really feel like this whole exercise of doing a set of renderings entirely inspired by a trash-picked cardboard box has been one of the most creatively freeing experiences of the past couple years.

Because what i do in 90% of my career is production, the creativity i exercise in that realm is within a set of guidelines--silhouette, color palette, fabric choice are all handed down from the designer, and my creativity is exercised in translation of the rendering to reality. In La Bricoleuse recently, i said "i'd liken production artistry to writing a sonnet--you have a set form and a rhyme structure in which you exercise your creativity. Design is free-form verse. Both are interesting exercises in the production of art, and stretch the mind in different ways." Whenever i switch back to design work after a long stretch of production, i'm initially panicky, like, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I DON'T HAVE TO USE IAMBIC PENTAMETER AND AN A-B RHYME SCHEME?!" And then, in short order, i remember how to swim and i'm good. (Hi, mixed metaphor to the max.)

I will say, one weird thing about participating in this blog is, this is where these things stop. I've done all the renderings for Hair that i intend to do...and now i'm on to something else. There's no cast to meet or design meetings to attend or color palettes to settle on or shopping to be done or shop to work with. I don't get to work with a whole creative community of people to pull these characters off the page and give them life. And, that makes me sad, in a sense. I want to see these scenes happen, laugh and cry and marvel at how it's exactly what i envisioned but so different as well, suck up the free wine at the opening gala and congratulate the guy playing Claude who of course looks absolutely nothing like the rendering when he's out of costume, all that comes AFTER the sketching.

I've talked with some designers who think that's paradise--"If only i could just sketch all day, create the designs *I* want and not have to deal with actors and directors and their messy opinions, and drapers and tailors who care about what fabric can actually do in the real world," that kind of thing. And i just think, really? Why aren't you an illustrator then? Because all of that, which you find so frustrating, is the very life's blood of theatre, and exactly why it holds a mirror up to life itself. It's not about a perfect hermetically-sealed easy isolated antiseptic creative bubble--it's messy frustrating beautiful angry gorgeous life.

Which is not to say that you don't on occasion want to give every other person on the creative team, in the shop, or part of the cast the vigorous angry double-middle-finger. And maybe that's the place they're coming from when people say that about the ideal design bubble. But i digress.

I'm done with Hair, but i do have another found background for a sketch that i'm excited about, so i'll do that one for tomorrow. It is drastically different from this series, so it'll be fun to change gears in a huge way for it. Then maybe i'll pick that tablet computer back up...

Let the Sun Shine In!

Kyle 5/3/10

2010-05-03T19:59:00.007-04:00

We hello duckies...
I'm just gonna go ahead and post the remainder of my Daly News sketches because that may be the last chance I have to post till I get up to Winona and settled next week (I've started packing tonight and my place is a MESS!!)...

Dave is the youngest son in the Daly family. He sings this great song about being left behind and not being able to join in the fighting because he's too young. I found a great source to get a custom Letterman sweater made in the correct school (Marquette University High School) colors.

Up next we have Kate, Marion and Ruth, the wives of the Daly sons and their sister. They sing an Andrews Sisters style song about the trials and tribulations of being a military wife. All the actors do for this number is put on hats - its really all they have time to do. In the past production the hats were really flowery and looked funny rather than realistic. I've pulled hats from CBT stock that coordinate with their base costume. They are also kind of Military Colors - Navy blue for the Navy, Olive drab for the Army, and Brown for the Marines. I think that with more realistic hats the convention of men in ladies hats won't be as funny.

Chuck is one of the Daly boys. Early in the play he is a Marine in Panama (for with he'll wear a turtle shell helmet) but, hating his assignment, he is recruited to be a Diplomatic Courier. Before his big switch to the Diplomatic Corps, Martin says that he'll get to wear "civilian clothes". In the past production he wore a bowler and sash as the courier. Now, a Bowler hat is, to quote the late Patrick Swazye as the erasable drag queen Vida, a "Say Something" hat - to me it either says British or "Clockwork Orange". Add a sash to that and it really says something, and that something is on "Civilian Clothes".

In period - the early 1940s - civilian clothes says double breasted suit and fedora to me. I haven't really gotten the go ahead from anyone about this change yet, but I hope I can talk everyone into it...

I've gotten more used to markers and am really starting to enjoy using them. I am defiantly going to do more with them over the summer to post on here.

OK, kittens...that's it from me, for a while at least. I may pop up with a few things, but no promises. I'll catch you on the flip side!!

Eric 5/3/10

2010-05-03T19:48:00.001-04:00

Now that Wonka and River Rat are in hand, I have nothing else to design until starting at USM in the fall. So, what to draw? I had no inspiration to start a paper project, so I just asked on Facebook. The two responses I received were "imaginary" and "ballet." So, voila! An imaginary ballet dancer.

Any chance I have to incorporate my favorite picture book of all time, I will gladly take.

So, knowing I'm not terribly interested in doing a play, toss out some super random ideas! I'd love to try and figure out how to juxtapose contrasting elements. C'mon, people! Challenge me!

Rachel, 5/3/10

2010-05-03T06:57:00.004-04:00

Wow, it's amazing how inspirational a stupid cardboard box has been! Two larger renderings in the Hair project--sideflaps on the trippy-patterened box provided space for full-body figures, so i drew the characters of Jeanie and Dionne.

First let me say something about the colors here. Overall with these sketches in this series, the colors are not meant to signify actual color choice for costumes. The colors are what they are because that's the drawing experiment of working with what you have on hand (highlighters and a cardboard box). A show like this one, even on Broadway, a lot of it is shopped, and certainly in most regional and academic settings it's going to be a serendipitous design process of finding cool pieces in stock or for rent, buying/thrifting, etc. So in the case of these designs, the color functions largely as an indication of value levels in the sketch itself, and secondarily as character commentary on a visceral/symbolic level.

For the character of Jeanie i chose pink as her color, because she strikes me as kind of like a cheerleader gone wrong. Sure, she's high on drugs all the time and super pregnant with the baby of a guy whose name she doesn't know, but she's also purely and unrequitedly in love with Claude, and strangely innocent for all that.

In terms of her appearance and attire, she's essentially this hippie chick i looked up to in high school, right down to the primitive-pleated tiered skirt and the floppy hat. In this sketch, what i'm least pleased with is the text content--i wanted to try to work the play title into it, and that i think works well, but i'm not happy with how Jeanie's name imbalances the layout. If i had it to do over, i'd put her name across the bottom, behind her feet.

Dionne is the character who leads the number "Aquarius," and i fully cop to just straight-up drawing the beautiful Patina Renae Miller, whom i saw do this role in the current Broadway revival, and horking her costume right down to the earrings and crochet bra-top. It's sketching practice, not design, right? I mean, if Eric can put Oprah in a Hogwarts uniform, surely i'm okay drawing a sketch of Michael McDonald's costume design. (See, i credited the designer, even.) Dionne is blue because, duh, "Aquarius." I tried to capture Miller's energy and joyfulness and tall slender physique, and i have to say, not to big myself up or anything, but i nailed it. I love this rendering to little bits.

For this sketch, i wanted to experiment with a rendering style that i find frustrating when i'm the production team member handed the sketch asked to build off of it. Ha! And by that i mean, the stylized rendering where the form and restriction of human physignomy is thrown to the breeze. I was also thinking about the rendering style of Lito-John Demetita (who designs primarily for ballet), and how he draws these beautiful huge figures that he folds and stuffs into the space of the page, so that they appear literally larger than life and ready to spring out of the rendering into some other more expansive stage space. So, here i wanted to create a drawing of Dionne that really embodies the way she belts out the chorus of "Aquarius," and i'm so pleased with the results that when i finished the drawing, i stood back, looked at it from across the room, and then high-fived the wall.

I would love to hear others' thoughts on the realistic rendering vs the stylized rendering, from both a design and production perspective. I admit, even from a production perspective, this particular rendering for Dionne i think is just fine, because i can look at it and see exactly what the design intent is for all of the pieces--even though no, bodies don't bend that way, if i were a design assistant i could shop this costume off of this sketch, and if i were doing crafts on this show i could paint those jeans from it. Sometimes though, i have to say without naming any names, SOME designers hand you a rendering where the hat design is a scribble and a paint splatter, and as a craftsperson, i'm always like, "Seriously? WTF here."

Next up: Claude and Berger. Bring it, mens, my highlighters and Sharpies are ready for you! (Sadly though, then i will be fresh out of cardboard box, so i reckon i'll be back to some other project soon, maybe more digital coloring.)

Eric Wonka Sketches

2010-05-02T20:28:00.000-04:00

All of the Wonka sketches can be viewed together on my website.

Enjoy!

Eric 5/2/10

2010-05-02T14:27:00.000-04:00

It's May! It's May! The lusty month of May!

I normally take the weekends off of the blog, but my final design meeting for Wonka is at 4:00 this afternoon. It took us awhile to come to our final solution for Violet as a blueberry, so I just got it sketched and colored this morning. Since I did a sketch, I figured it's perfect fodder for a blog entry.

My portion of Violet's transformation is the third and final step. The first is a lighting and sound shift, the second is a scenic transformation, with fabric panels creating a windmill like effect, and the third is when the windmill dynamically breaks apart, and Violet emerges thusly.

I puzzled a long time on how I can create something interesting, theatrical and manageable for our time and budget. I knew something couldn't just emerge from her costume because there would be no way to hide it well during the huge buildup to this moment. We knew an inflatable costume wasn't stylized enough. Then I thought about a Chinese paper lantern, and how it collapses to almost nothing and then expands into a spherical shape. Perfect!

Violet acts like the tension rod in the lamp, keeping it a sphere. I think we're going to use either thin PVC or tubing for the boning. I already found a pretty decent 4-way blue knit stretch on the clearance table at Hancock's ($2 a yard, baby!). Her gloves will be built in to the sphere to help stabilize the piece from left to right. The last ring around her neck and shoulders will have to be jointed or hinged, so she can shimmy it up her body and over her shoulders.

Rachel, since you're the expert crafts artisan of the group, if you have any ideas or suggestions, I would be ALL EARS!

Anyway, I just really like how this sketch turned out. In fact, now that all of Wonka is done, I'm pretty happy with the set. Yes, I made mistakes. Yes, the proportions are wacky at times. Yes, my marker work is oftentimes inexpertly executed. But, I'm pushing myself to move past that kind of negativity. I'll never turn out a perfect sketch, period.

I rather like to think that it is my imperfections that make me unique as an illustrator.

3-fer from Rachel, 5/2/10

2010-05-02T12:57:00.004-04:00

These are three character studies of faces/hairstyles from Hair: The American Tribal Love Rock Musical.

I know, i am all over the map here, but here's my train of thought, meandery though it may be.

Working in a new medium can be really discouraging. I am used to how i sketch with tangible media like pencils and pens and markers, and i am used to producing a rendering that i am generally pleased with. I can experiment with new things within those familiar media, and still be happy with what i come up with. But, the past series of sketches with the tablet, i've felt like a big loser, what with how difficult it was to figure out how to make it do the simplest things, and still being largely unthrilled with the result.

So today, i was like, "I am going to draw on actual paper products using things i understand and have a certain affinity for, so i can remind myself that i don't suck at sketching, especially now that Eric has done gone and put this on Facebook and thus i can see that A HUNDRED AND FIFTY PEOPLE ARE LOOKING AT THESE THINGS EGAD. *waves* Hi all y'all.

Anyhow. Back when i did a lot of rendering regularly, i used to be generally on the lookout for cool backgrounds. This started when i did a paper project for a class and put all my renderings on the classified section of the newspaper instead of on actual sketchbook paper or whatever. When i joined this blog, it kicked back in, that background-scoping, and i've started amassing some interesting prospects, of which the background of today's sketches is an example.

You may recognize it as a decorative cardboard print that Yoox.com uses on the boxes they ship their merchandise in. (This brought me a fabulous pair of wooden-sole heeled sandals made by Cydwoq, if you care.) When i got the package, i thought, "Wow, that would be awesome to do some renderings for a show like Hair..."

Let me digress a moment here to say that i have a lifelong love for Hair, having picked up the soundtrack in my teens, when i was particularly into 60s flower child culture thanks to a mixed tape my hippie aunt and uncle had given me. Two summers ago, i was working in NYC the summer that the Public was reviving it (the original "Shakespeare in the Park" festival production that preceeded the current Broadway run), and a pal was their painter/dyer, so i went to see it at the Delacorte with her. As a teenager, my relationship to the show was fairly straightforward, in that "yay look drugs sex peace love gayness protest singing naked wheeee" sense. As an adult, i was struck by how really sad and deluded and misguided and shitty a lot of the characters are to one another, in and amongst all the yay drugs sex peace love etc.

So, i have some larger pieces of this trippy background print cardboard that i plan to use for actual full-body renderings, but first i did these three character/face studies, to see whether my idea of using single-color markers/pens to do the majority of the sketch, followed by black marker finishing work, would actually look ok on this fairly bold (yet pastel) pattern.

I should also note that this is a case of making art with whatever you have at hand--i have found Kyle's and Eric's marker-colored renderings SO inspiring, but i neither own Design markers nor have the budget to acquire any. I did enjoy yesterday attempting to apply marker-rendering techniques to my Mrs. Linde sketch digitally, but today, i really wanted to draw with actual ink on actual paper...so i scoped around the house and found a set of highlighter pens and Sharpies in two thicknesses. Voila, i figured i'd pick something to draw that would be OK in neon. That plus the trippy background serendipity, and i'm busting out some hippies.

These sketches (clockwise from top left) show the characters Woof (pink), Hud (green), and Sheila (blue).

Woof breaks my heart, from a modern perspective; i know he's often played as a clownish character, but i think it's pretty clear from the text that he's in this really psychologically bizarre situation of being closeted, yet moving in a social sphere where he DOES have sex with men as part of the free-love everybody-bang-in-piles subculture, and still cannot actually admit that he's just plain gay. I didn't mean to be cliche by choosing pink for his marker color; i started the sketch planning to draw Jeanie instead (the girl who is in love with Claude and super-pregnant with some speed freak's baby). Then as i was drawing, i realized that i was actually drawing Woof, because he's the character i associate most with the facial expression i drew here.

Hud is sexy. Every time i've seen this show, i wish his role were larger. I probably should have scanned these rather than array them on my desk and photograph them, because for him i had a green ballpoint in addition to the marker, and there's a lot of crosshatching that just looks like it's gone. Ah well. Hud is a angry and good humored, dangerous and kind, and confrontational and laid-back, so his color is green.

Sheila is an angry young woman. She's the one who is hardcore about protesting and involved in the bizarre love triangle with Claude and Berger. I've seen this show with a ton of different casts, and i have to say, if Sheila isn't seriously hot stuff, you (meaning me) spend most of the show wishing she'd take a hike so Claude and Berger can just be gay with one another, and the love triangle's more of an irritation than a plot element. This blue Sheila is the Sheila that makes that whole part of the story work for me. I did deliberately choose blue for her (she was the first sketch i did), because it's easy to see her as mostly angry, but she's got a lot of sorrow and disappointment in her as well and i wanted to express that.

I am approaching my contributions to this blog with a "take it as it comes" attitude--while i do plan to continue exploring digital sketching and image creation, i don't want to set any restrictions or concrete plans. I want to just let inspiration carry me, and explore whatever feels most interesting each day. Today, that was characters from Hair on cardboard salvaged from the recycle bin. So be it!

Rachel 5/1/10

2010-05-01T10:04:00.003-04:00

I know i'd been working on Summer and Smoke, but it occurred to me that with this exploration into the drastically new medium of digital sketching on a tablet computer, that perhaps i was trying to do too much at once--that maybe i should focus on a specific technique with my next sketch, and i decided i'd try color application.

I recently went through my design archive and turned up this old paper project version of A Doll's House from literally like 1993 i think, which in the assignment we'd taken as far as doing uncolored renderings in pencil, but not painted. I think maybe we had determined a color palette, but if so, that's lost in the sands of time. But, whatever, i thought that it would be a good way to explore specifically some beginning color application techniques. The sketch itself may be oooooold as the hills, but it serves my purpose well here. Consider Summer and Smoke to be on hiatus for a few sketches on my behalf, while i run with this in a new direction.

So, this is Mrs Linde. I've gone with a fairly obvious color choice for her--purple hues as a blend of cold and warm, since she functions at times as a quiet exposition-excuse character, listening to Nora objectively, yet we know she also has a buried passionate side as well.

I wanted to see if i could apply digital color to this sketch to give the impression of some specific fabric choices. I was aiming for the following:

Hat: buckram frame with soft velvet cover fabric, applied in structural folds, trimmed in a feather pouf and some geometric ribbon garniture.
Bodice/jacket: pinstriped wool in two shades of dark purple, trimmed in silver fox, perhaps with a breath of lavender to the color of it.
Bustle drape: crepe-backed satin.
Underskirt: alternating crossweave/solid stripe, probably something crispy like taffeta.

What do y'all think? I'm still struggling up the steep learning curve with this, but i feel like i achieved a modicum of success with these. I'm most pleased with the hat--no surprise, since millinery's my day job. I could at least drape a muslin for the rest of the outfit from this sketch, and have some idea the structure and fabric types. (I always look at my renderings with that kind of thing in mind, as a career production artist--could someone easily start building this based on this rendering, or am i going to have to answer a lot of questions in the first draper conference?)

At some point, i'm going to shift off the tablet into Photoshopping and see what kind of digital sketch manipulation i can achieve there. This is all a really fascinating exploration, whether it ever becomes something applicable and useful or not.

Kyle 4/30/10

2010-04-30T23:18:00.004-04:00

This one really took me a while...I'm just not used to markers...not used to how they move, how to blend them, how they work in my hand...its getting better though. I really need to get the skin tone set and a cool gray set if I want to keep using them.

I like the fact that I can layer them like water color to deepen tone, but I don't like that I can't mix my own colors into one marker like I would load a brush with a color I mixed...I have to layer colors which is something I'm not used to yet. The coats in this sketch, for instance, took me forever to get close to right (they're a little too dark, but its just a suggestion!). There are seriously, like, 5 colors of marker on there.

I'm not all that happy with the streaky look of the trousers, but that's just me...I'm not used to the way markers look when I use them. I can look at other designer's marker renderings and say, "those look wonderful!" and I'm just kinda "blah" about mine...they aren't bad, I'm just not used to them.

Using markers is wonderful though. There isn't that pesky drying time you have to contend with when using paint, and the color is even - you reach for a marker and you know exactly what color is gonna come out. I really want to keep working with them...maybe try to get myself loosened up. I think that this summer (not that I'll have much free time) I'll take some of the Merry Wives and Into the Woods sketches with me and color them...and then post them. And you all can tell me what I'm doing wrong (hopefully I'll do some things right).

Eric 4/30/10

2010-04-30T19:20:00.000-04:00

One full week! One full week! Gooooooo me!

I'm really happy with this blog, and let me tell you why. Getting into the habit of thinking about doing one sketch per day has enabled me to pace myself in prepping for a show deadline. In this case, I may have put off coloring all of my Wonka sketches until tonight, which would have created an unpleasant and sloppy coloring marathon this weekend. Instead, I've pushed myself to get one done a day, to take my time, and now I only have two sketches left to color this weekend. Awesome.

These are the lovely Grandparents, whom I pulled very strongly into the world of candy and chocolate. They may be poor, but I want them to look warm and friendly. To me, they're like the bowl of hard candy your great-grandmother always had sitting out on the coffee table. Here is my color inspiration:

Every time I think I'm getting good with markers, I either screw up something really badly (which I did in the case of Grandma Georgina, but fixed) or figure out a new technique that I needed three sketches ago. I figure though, that this is a lifelong process and I'll look back at these sketches a year from now and laugh at how much I didn't know.

The Return....OF KYLE!!!!! AGGG!!!

2010-04-29T21:14:00.005-04:00

Hey friends! Sorry I've been away for so long...its been way busy at work and with gearing up for the Summer...

Anyway, speaking of Summer, that's the subject of my post today. I'm going back to Great River Shakespeare Festival (www.grsf.org if you're interested) where I'll be assistant designing the costumes for Othello, designed by Devon Painter, and the "Design Coordinator" for a musical called The Daly News. Its basically a re-mount of a production done a few years ago, but we are re-imagining a few things. Its a really lovely show with three actors that play lots of characters. Things move really fast so the characters need to be easily identifiable and quick to get on and off. It lots and lots of hats and coats. I'm only rendering things that are different from the original production.

Martin is the patriarch of the Daly family (he's played by the playwright, Jon Daly, who also happens to be his Grandson) whose children have all shipped out to fight in World War II. Every week he compiles all the letters that he gets from them and adds news from the home front into a news letter called "The Daly News" and sends it out to his kids to keep the family in touch.

The base costume for all the actors is a shirt and pants. In the past production he wore a cardigan and spectacles, which he's wearing here, but I'm getting new ones rather than renting them. There were issues with the fit of the cardigan in the past production, so I'm buying two sizes and seeing which fits Jon the best.

Shatzie is Martin's wife. An apron has always been used for this character, but was far too full and frilly in the past production. I found a really lovely apron in my research online and planned on building it. AND THEN I found the pattern in stock at work...I was so happy. We'll have to scale the pattern up to actually fit a man, but its a start!

I have a few more sketches to do...I'll post more as I get them done. I'm using markers for the first time in years so I'm doing lots of playing...its hard to get may hand used to the markers after being so used to a paint brush, but the markers go so much faster and considering that I leave for Winona in exactly one week, I need all the speed I can get!!

Eric 4/29/10

2010-04-29T18:19:00.000-04:00

So, I think I redeemed my time a bit today, since this one did not take me six hours. I attribute that largely to the fact that they're all wearing pants, and those are pretty simple to color. Plus, these are all clothes that I pulled from the Old Navy website, so there was little to figure out.

Something interesting that has come up, and I'm hesitant to talk about it so it's not taken out of context, is the issue of race. Yesterday, I was asked why all of the bad kids and parents where white; and not just white, but the exact same hue of Caucasian. In real life, some are pale, some are tan and some are in between. Well that is because I learned ONE way to color white skin, and I used it over and over as a time save more than anything. That, and costume sketches are illustrations, not photo-realism.

But it got me thinking: why do I default to drawing a white person with Brick Beige skin and a perfect body? Well, I don't think there's an easy answer. In truth, I tend to like to draw men over women as well. I'll default to drawing a white male than anything else. Mostly, I think I do it because I just don't think: I draw. Today I thought about it, so I tried to represent some diversity.

I'm going to keep this more in mind from now on. I admitted earlier in the blog that I wanted to explore more diversity in my drawing, since I've always just defaulted to what I see in the mirror.

Eric 4/28/10

2010-04-28T20:33:00.000-04:00

This sketch took foreeeeeeeeeeeeeeever to color! But, it was eight figures in all, so I'm pretty sure I'm allowed for it to take some time. Either way, I'm really pleased with it.

One of things I like best about the sketch is Violet's Girl Scout Uniform. I referenced an actual uniform for the color and it took five markers to get it with all of its highlights and shadows.

The director asked me specifically not to "color block" the families, so that they can be more individual. Although I did connect them through hair color and style, I allowed them to find their own color identity. Their palate is to be more demure, so that the chocolate factory can be more contextually vibrant.

Just a few more to go!

Eric 4/27/10

2010-04-27T15:21:00.000-04:00

And from work, no less! This sketch is the immediate Bucket family, Charlie (for most of the play and his transformation at the end), Mother and Father. I took a picture with my camera, so the contrast is a little bit off.

I was really uninspired on what to do for Mother. So being at work, I just went down to stock to see what we have and what I could re-purpose. And voila! I found all of those pieces in stock, which would give me a general path to follow for the mother. Charlie and Dad will have their sweaters done custom. I have intentionally drawn Dad's sweater to be a little bit too big and yet too small. It's a well-made sweater that he's needed to keep in use for a long time.

The other great thing is that Charlie's apron for the end is the actual fabric that LAYNE found during a trip to Hancock's. Yes, it is a white cotton with a border print of those amazing dots. For the hat, we are going to cut smaller dots from the larger ones to create the border on his little Candyman hat.

I'm glad I'm able to slowly get these colored instead of a mad dash to the end. I'm enjoying taking my time with the marker, doing lots of tests and trying to get as much detail in as I would do with something like acrylic or colored pencil. It took me a little bit to remember Bill Black's method for coloring faded jeans. I still don't think I have the finesse with it he does. I know he uses Periwinkle in there somewhere, but for the life of me I couldn't make THAT work.

Eric 4/26/10

2010-04-26T22:31:00.000-04:00

My focus this week will be on coloring my Wonka sketches, since they're due Sunday. So I'm sorry to say that I won't be posting new drawings until next week.

Coloring is one of those things that I stress about until I start. Then, I LOVE it! I think it hearkens back to my love of coloring books when I *was* a kid.

For this show I'm using marker, for several reasons. One, I think maker provides a fun, intense color with little to no fuss. Two, it's quick to get to the color I see in my head. Three, there is no dry time, which always gets me into trouble with watercolor. I've used markers enough that I'm pretty familiar with color quality and hue, but it's still a game of experimentation.

In my grad program, I had two colleagues that were amazing with marker: my professor, Bill Black and my classmate Emily Strickland. Those two can make marker look gorgeous and effortless. I used to always beg Bill to teach me marker, however, he always said he couldn't. Bill just picked up markers one day and started playing, and he encouraged me to do the same.

So, I still consider myself "playing" with marker. With every sketch, I invent new tricks and techniques and keep finding new ways to articulate the figure. And my cats LOVE it when I spread around 300 markers on the floor. It's like kitty porn.

Eric 4/22/10

2010-04-22T20:38:00.002-04:00

Since I'm kind of caught up on my current shows, tonight I drew something more random. I looked up some of John Galliano's couture and decided to draw from that.

The fashion figure is so unlike the figure I know, I think I instinctively added curve and form to the woman, rather than accurately capture the image in front of me. The angle of the model made drawing the boots... interesting. I mean, there was no heel for a grounding, so it ended up looking like these weirdo bound stumps. But I tried!

It was sort of freeing to just draw something random. Also, I'm sketching FAST! It's like getting down to about 15 to 20 minutes to get these done. I suppose I could go slower, but I'm not stressing out about drawing anymore. I seriously used to STRESS OUT about drawing, and now I don't think anything of it. If I'm comfortable at this speed, then I should continue to roll with it.

So, does anyone read this blog, still? I mean, I started this as a motivational tool to keep me drawing, and I think it's been 85% effective for that. Then it turned into a great feedback tool. Now it seems... solitary? Are you out there, readers?

Rachel 4/21/10

2010-04-21T20:20:00.005-04:00

I'm trying to be circumspect about the learning curve in terms of sketching using a tablet computer, and not be too hard on myself. This is my third sketch ever on one; still, it's hard not to page back to my pencil sketches and look at this with the hypercritical eye of "Man, these blow."

That said, i'm happiest with this one so far, in that i tried doing a sketch in which i attempted to use the limitations of the tablet as strengths--avoiding any attempts at fine detail drawing, and employing monochromatic layering of different color-application tools to indicate stylized depth. And, looking at some images of period fashion designs helped too, with their thick border lines around figures.

I need to figure out a method to create facial features in this medium so that all my folks don't just look like the same mannequin. Right now, i feel like this character resembles Miss Alma too closely, because i can't get in there to really draw detailed features.

So, this is Rosa Gonzales, Miss Alma's rival for Dr Buchanan's affections. Her dad owns the casino in town where Dr Buchanan spends all his evenings (and money) gambling and boozing the night away. She's a peacock, sexy, adventurous, disreputable, so she's wearing an arm-baring evening gown even though in this scene she's strolling in the park.

I dunno, i may abandon the wacom as a tool, but i feel like i should give it a good old college try, and will hang in for at least a dozen sketches. If i do a dozen renderings on it and still feel frustrated by the product, i'll return to pencil. What i'm hoping is that after a dozen, i'll at least be heartened about its potential. I do appreciate this pulling me out of my comfort zone, in terms of style and how i think about building a sketch. And I'm looking forward to trying out working with it in a program other than Paint though; that may change my mind for the better. I'm determined for now to keep on pushing these pixels!

Eric 4/19-4/21

2010-04-21T15:01:00.004-04:00

I've been battling a cold for a couple of days, which knocked me out of the sketching mood. However, today I did three for Monday through today.

These roughs are for my next next show, River Rat and Cat. It's small, and will tour throughout the schools in Kentucky and the region this fall. Here is a brief synopsis of the show, pulled from the publisher's website:

No one has ever understood the mysterious friendship of River Rat and Cat. From the day fastidious River Rat hauled a drowning sodden Cat from a sinking basket (thinking Cat was some unique collectible), all of the river creatures have been dismayed by the camaraderie of this unlikely duo. Cat proved to be imaginative, grand, fussy and thoroughly needy, while Rat is material, practical and thoroughly self-reliant. Lately, Rat has become frazzled by Cat's demands and has undertaken a program to make Cat more self-sufficient. However, Cat is determined to remain a pampered feline. Unbeknownst to River Rat and Cat, their downstream neighbor, Dale Beaver, has cast an eye on the one remaining tree, a tree currently owned by River Rat and inhabited by Cat. Beaver needs this tree if the Dale Beaver Dam is to remain the tallest on the river. Beaver must break up this friendship so that Rat will evict Cat.

There you are!

I'm keying in on Beaver's highly militaristic style. He never comes onto stage without a march and cadence. His costume is inspired by WWII British uniforms, with many natural touches added, like the bottle cap medals and the ivy citation cord.

I think of River Rat as a hoarder. He lives for his possessions, and will do anything for them. He's that hobo who lives by the river and has his shopping cart full of wares. His pockets are stuffed full of his worthless treasures, and his clothes reflect his focus: his possessions are what matters, not his appearance.

Finally, there's Cat, who's a bit of a runaway. Cat's a house cat who is living the wild life outdoors. He's pampered, spoiled and out of place, but he loves it. He reminds me of the those young boys from highly proper backgrounds who want nothing more but to play in the mud.

I liked getting back to my usual sketching style, although I think they all have big heads. I also am very deliberately choosing not to go "all out" on the animal qualities. This attempt is just adding tails to character-inspired costume.

So, we'll see how it all goes in my design meeting tomorrow!

Rachel 4/19/10

2010-04-19T22:08:00.004-04:00

So, i took a bit of a hiatus from sketching due to USITT and a couple of guest lectures i had to take care of first, but tonight i had the chance to get back into it and decided to give the Wacom sketching another try, this time without trying to incorporate color.

This is Alma Winemiller when she runs next door at 2am in her nightgown and robe, under the pretext of needing some "nerve pills" but really so she can fling herself at Dr John in her nightwear...except he's in his office drinking with his floozy girlfriend Rosa, and Alma is humiliated.

Here i've kept in the theme of asymmetrical elements for her, with her crossover imbalanced overrobe and its two weird skirt tucks on the side--lots of strange blousy horizontal arbitrary pleats and tucks in this period showing up in skirts and long peplums, and i found the hem ruffle robe in a Sears catalogue. Its fussiness made me laugh; only Alma would try to seduce someone, however ineptly, in a nightgown trimmed like a renegade lampshade from a child's bedroom. Also, clearly she's someone who is both trying for a period coiffure but having issues with Southern humidity and flyaway hair-frizz here.

I'm happier with how the Wacom drawing experimentation has turned out this time, and i'm looking forward to having the time to really jump into it, and get a more thorough feel for it as a sketching tool. I can tell that there's a lot that can be done, but i'm still learning to drive with the training wheels on as yet.

Eric 4/16/10

2010-04-16T19:07:00.002-04:00

Here's a colored sketch for the "Chorus of Chefs" for Augustus Gloop's solo number. Since he is inescapably German, I decided to play with the scale of a standard chef hat, and combine it with a traditional Olive Garden waiter, and integrate the colors of the Bundesflagge.

So, there you go.

I'm starting to color the rest of the sketches this weekend... nothing like being two weeks ahead of the deadline!

Again, these sketches are bigger than my scanner, so I promise they have feet.

Eric 4/14/10

2010-04-14T20:28:00.002-04:00

I'm not happy with the Oompa Loompas, and it finally occurred to me as to why: in the quest for individuality, I think I've lost their "spark". In every aspect of the design, we've sought out a strong sense of individuality, which I love. However, the Oompas function and exist ENTIRELY as a group.

What I am inspired by is the idea that they are, in fact, factory workers. They can still have personality, but they gain a much higher level of functionality.

In this design, they would be in black coveralls. Their names, back patches, trim, pockets, appliques and socks would be in the bright colors. They all don't even have to be polka dots, as I can source soccer socks in MANY varieties of patterns and colors.

What this also does is allow for a stronger context for all of the OTHER individuals to stand out more clearly. The kids, bad kids, Buckets: they now have a more solid group to play against, rather than an overwhelming amount of individuals competing for visual attention.

So, I've really not drawn someone from the back in a long time. I just decided that it could be a different person, since I was having a horrible time trying to find the same figure in reverse. If this idea flies, I'll just sketch the other five Oompas around these two.

Eric 4/13/10

2010-04-13T21:36:00.002-04:00

I actually have a Tuesday sketch! Today I spent a lot of time AT work doing Wonka sketches. This is a plate for the "kids" in the show. Essentially, they are chorus in the opening, and crowds around the chocolate factory.

Since GLEE is on, I'm keeping this short and sweet. Two points:

1. I feel like this looks like a Gap ad.*

2. I modeled one guy's hair after Justin Bieber.

Later!

*since I looked at Gap ads, I think this appropriate

Eric 4/12/10

2010-04-12T21:29:00.002-04:00

Tonight's sketch is my revision for the Oompa Loompas. On Friday, I talked about how the directors wanted to shape the Oompas into clear individuals. So, this is my first pass at that. There are six Oompas (with possibility of one to two more).

From left to right is Oompa Loompa Doompa (the slow one), Oompa Loompa Zoompa (the fast one), Oompa Loompa Joompa (the one who likes to jump), Oompa Loompa Scoompa (the digger), Oompa Loompa Boompa (the clumsy one) and my personal favorite, Oompa Loompa Bruce (the gay one).

To be honest, I don't have tons more to say about these guys. So we'll just see what the directors say!

Eric 4/9/10

2010-04-09T19:03:00.002-04:00

I'm not gonna lie, I did not draw this sketch today. I know, SCANDAL! But I did draw it this week. I wanted to make it a week, so sue me.

I consider this a "character" sketch, not a costume rendering. Although Wonka is where I am want him to be in the process, the Oompa Loompas are "under construction." Here are some factors were are considering for the Loompas (some of these tenets came out of the directors' responses to the sketch):

1. Each Oompa needs to have a specific and unique identity. We're even going to name them to the tune of "Oompa Loompa Zooma" and "Oompa Loompa Bloompa." My suggestion of creating a homosexual Oompa called "Oompa Loompa Bruce" didn't make it.
2. They will have a strong sense of make-up.
3. We will be seeking many different heights of Oompas, not going to cast for a universal little person.
4. Their colors will match the intensity of the chocolate factory.
5. They each need a stronger sense of fit, to allow for more complicated movement.

So, tomorrow (probably Sunday) I'll be redoing this one, and we'll see what happens then!

Kyle 4/8/10

2010-04-08T23:27:00.002-04:00

Back to the blog-stone, as it were. I haven't really gotten as into this project as my earlier ones, oddly enough. I can't really say why. I really love the play and can see in my head what everything looks like, but its a realistic play set in 1934...so I'm basically picking clothes out of catalogues (though, I know, as Bill Black says, "Designing is choosing."). And I've been a bit preoccupied...but enough excuses!

Karen Wright is the other co-founder of the girls school in The Childern's Hour. She is much more romantic and less confrontational than Martha (though the students still respect her authority). She has been engaged to Joe (who we've yet to meet) for several years.

I'm not exceptionally pleased with this sketch. Its passable, I suppose. I didn't try too hard with the pose (I tried to not look at a reference for it - though I did reference the face) and its a little off...it lacks movement, I guess. Very static. I'm OK with the face - it got a little long and is a bit too big for the figure. I like the dress, but the sleeves are a bit too full and the pattern is all wrong. I pretty much pulled it from the Spring 1934 Sears Catalogue, cut and print...the cut is right, but the print just doesn't work. Oh well, you win some, you kinda win some.

I'm going to be spending a lot of time at work over the next few weeks while also getting ready for the Summer. I'm gonna push to get this project done before May though...We'll see how it goes!

Eric 4/8/10

2010-04-08T20:51:00.003-04:00

**note: Even though I just bought a large-format scanner, I decided to draw Wonka stuff on HUGE paper, so they can't be completely scanned. Please use your imagination to fill in the stuff the scanner cut off.

This plate shows the Candyman, Phineas Trout (a reporter) and Wonka. One of the main ideas the directors and I want to convey is the Wonka exerts incredible influence behind the scenes. In other words, we choose to believe that it was no accident that these five children were the ones who found the Golden Tickets.

That being said, we want the audience to feel like Wonka has "agents" all over the world, namely the Candyman and Trout. I'm trying to echo Wonka's patterns (and ultimately his colors) in their costumes. Additionally, they both have a Wonka logo on their clothes: one on the Candyman's apron, the other on Trout's lapel.

I used to be so horrified at the idea of drawing multiple figures on one plate, but I'm really starting to get into it. I helps me control proportion, and it forces me to get more done. After all, in three sittings this week, I knocked out sixteen costumes rather than just doing three singular sketches. When I was less confident in my figures, I used to STRESS OUT about making them all "match".

Although I'm teeeeeechnically behind, I'm going to get Wonka knocked out really soon! I promise!

Eric 4/7/10

2010-04-07T21:00:00.004-04:00

Tonight I redrew the bad Wonka kids, this time with their parents, and more in the figure style I'm going to use for this show. I kept thinking that the sketch was taking me FOREVER, but then I remembered that I was actually drawing eight figures, all in told.

When drawing tonight, Layne asked me an interesting question: "Is this show hard, since everybody already knows what these people look like?" Well, that is interesting. It has been a challenge to find something new and fresh to bring to this design, since the films are so iconic. But the real reason why I think this show is tough is because the iconic designs worked, and they are based on pretty standard archetypes. For my design, I'm trying to find my own voice by finding new avenues in which to explore these archetypes. Again, I don't think it's earth shattering design, but I am enjoying the experience.

Augustus and Mom: Gluttony. Mom is the ideal "soccer mom" being modestly dressed in her mom jeans and traditional European silk neck scarf. Of course, Augustus's sport is eating, not soccer.

Mike and Mom: Sloth. Mike is pretty self-explanatory. His mom, she's the "young" mom who lives through her son. Think Amy Poehler's character in Mean Girls. She's in her hip jogging outfit, replete with pony tail and hoop earrings.

Violet and Dad: Pride. I discussed Violet in my earlier post. Her dad is clearly a working-class man. I like the idea that they don't have a lot of money, but what money they do earn, is reinvested into their daughter. I think he's an assistant manager at Wal-Mart.

Veruca and Dad: Wrath. Spoiled West Central Park New Yorkers. They wear labels and Dad never leaves home without his bluetooth. Veruca is carrying her fur, and probably has a glittery phone cover. Dad is so fashionable, he even scrunches his coat sleeves. Yeah, THAT fashionable.

I had a lot of fun doing the sketch this way. Three more plates like this, and I'll have the whole musical designed!

Eric 4/5/10

2010-04-05T19:25:00.003-04:00

I know! I know! It's been forever! This month was cra-zy busy. But now it's time to pick up the blog and sketch, sketch, sketch.

Continuing with Willy Wonka, tonight's sketch is that of the grandparents. Honestly, there's nothing earth-shattering about this. The four grandparents are invalids. They stay in bed 24/7. What I like so much about the original Wonka movie is that the grandparents' nightclothes are stained. They're clean, but stained. I think this is really important. The family tries in earnest, but they simply don't have many options. I imagine the grandparents have two or three sets of nightclothes, but that's it.

Grandpa Joe's suit is old fashion and worn. Along with the rest of the Bucket family, I see their clothes as patched, but done so lovingly. In other words, they're not doing the high contrast patches like a clown. Rather, the grandmothers spend their days darning and patching, to keep their clothes lasting as long as possible.

One of the GREAT things about this show is that I get to have CUSTOM KNITWORK! Wait until you see this sweater tomorrow for Charlie. A local knitting group is volunteering their time so that I can outfit Charlie, Grandpa Joe (sweater vest) and the whole family in hand-knitted sweaters, shawls, scarves and hats. After all, that's HOW they would get those pieces anyway! It's so organic!

So, here's a thing about these drawings. When I have a large show, I discovered last summer that I really enjoy drawing them in tableau on bristol (14x17). It's challenging to get the figures to look like they are all in the same world. For this, I'm using an intentionally stylized face (plus I sort of drew this in a hurry).

My goal: to make it through this week on the blog. I sort of have to: I gots LOTS of sketches to get done!

Kyle 4/4/10

2010-04-04T16:45:00.006-04:00

Oh, my online friends, has it been a busy week, and, boy, was it hard to get back into sketching after a week away. Yet here I am...back to The Children's Hour. Two sketches...

One of the first characters to which we are introduced is Mrs. Mortar. She is a former stage actress and rather full of herself. She's also imposing on the hospitality of her niece, Karen, who is the co-founder of the school. Mrs. Mortar isn't really a teacher, but supervises the girls during their "Sewing and Elocution Hour" (I wish I'd had one of those in school!).

Her dress is an early 1930s floral chiffon confection. The play opens in early spring so the colors would be light and pastel. She is flighty and so is this dress.

Martha Dobie is, with Karen, a founder of the school. She is no-nonsense and unattached to anyone, besides Karen. The girls respect her authority without fearing her. She is forthright and assertive.

Her costume is separates rather than a dress. I found this sweater in the Sears Catalogue from Spring 1934 and she skirt from a photo online. It is rather tailored and much more severe than a dress would be. I toyed with pants, but I wouldn't want to beat the audience over the head while screaming "LESBIAN!!!"...it just isn't right to force foreshadow like that, and 1934 is a little too early for women in pants. I like the separate skirt because she could wear it later with a different blouse. These people aren't rich, so they rotate items in their wardrobes...like normal people.

I'm not super happy with these sketches...a week off really does effect sketching. Martha's face is too long and narrow - her head is actually a bit small, and Mrs. Mortar's neck is too long with something funky going on in the shoulders. Oh well...its not horrible, but not my best.

Kyle 3/29/10

2010-03-29T23:01:00.003-04:00

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

2010-03-27T19:23:00.003-04:00

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

2010-03-25T21:41:00.003-04:00

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

2010-03-25T21:20:00.003-04:00

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

2010-03-25T00:02:00.003-04:00

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

2010-03-23T09:43:00.003-04:00

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

2010-03-22T21:01:00.003-04:00

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

2010-03-21T23:13:00.003-04:00

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

2010-03-20T17:10:00.003-04:00

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

2010-03-18T22:47:00.003-04:00

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

2010-03-18T19:11:00.004-04:00

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

2010-03-17T22:23:00.003-04:00

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

2010-03-16T22:43:00.004-04:00

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

2010-03-16T22:20:00.002-04:00

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

2010-03-16T09:23:00.003-04:00

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

2010-03-15T22:39:00.002-04:00

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

2010-03-11T21:54:00.003-05:00

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

2010-03-11T21:19:00.003-05:00

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.

2010-03-11T17:11:00.002-05:00

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

2010-03-10T22:11:00.002-05:00

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

2010-03-10T20:20:00.002-05:00

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

2010-03-09T20:45:00.003-05:00

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

2010-03-08T22:39:00.003-05:00

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

2010-03-08T20:49:00.002-05:00

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

2010-03-07T18:15:00.003-05:00

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.

2010-03-06T23:41:00.005-05:00

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

2010-03-04T22:43:00.002-05:00

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

2010-03-03T21:53:00.003-05:00

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

2010-03-02T22:07:00.002-05:00

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

2010-03-02T21:47:00.002-05:00

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

2010-03-01T21:45:00.003-05:00

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

2010-03-01T20:16:00.002-05:00

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.