Kyle 4/8/10

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!

Kyle 3/29/10

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

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

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

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