Kyle 5/3/10

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!!

Kyle 4/30/10

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).

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

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!!