Cassandra Phillips: Scenic Artist
 
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This week, I have been plugging away at a fancy table and chair set for "The Heart of Robin Hood."

These pieces need to have a fine grain and look super realistic.  They also have TONS of small pieces to them including dental molding and spindles!  I took a look at the sample and said, "Here we go!"


To the right you can see a picture of me color matching to the sample research.  

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There were no tricks or ways around this one, I just had to hand grain the whole thing.  Starting with a striated wet blend for a base coat, I added a raw umber glaze and flogged it, creating depth and movement.  I grained after the raw umber glaze to preserve the punch of the grain I saw in the sample.  Then I had an all-over glaze to bring the grain together.  I love to add a touch of violet to my final glaze to give it a sweet touch.  

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Here is the finished chair.  As you can see, it had a LOT going on: the carving on the top was also mirrored below, and the spindles were especially challenging.  I had to really think about how the grain runs through a piece of wood that gets turned.  I used a real raw wood spindle for reference.  

Here is a slideshow of the table I am working on.  It is well on its way and is going surprisingly fast.  

As you can see, the treatment is relatively simple, but the detail in the build of the table is a challenge.  
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And here she is, the completed table!

 
PictureA page of research to work from. Given by scenic designer Michael Giannio.


Our outdoor season is full of automation and magic.  There are traps and roll drops, things to climb and swing on, doors to appear and disappear from- lots of places for fairies to hide.  One entrance will be made through a giant mushroom large enough for a little girl to come through.  It also needed to be short enough to easily be carried away by two other fairies.  Due to these size and shape restrictions, the mushroom needed to be built and carved into a fairly unrealistic shape.  It was up to me to paint this not-to-scale beastie to be magical enough to exist in the enchanted forest, but realistic enough that the audience would buy it's shape.  

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The stump was based in a nice cream, then washed with a slightly darker cream (+ a bit of burnt sienna) to deepen the valleys.  Using an airbrush, I brought the burnt sienna down from the top of the stump and blended it out into the cream as I went down.  I used a similar technique at the bottom to bring in the color of the floor to root the mushroom in the space.  A drybrush of near white brought out the high points, and lastly, a shadow was added.  

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The cap was almost completely airbrushed.  The lip was white peeking over from the delicate underside.  The white soon became a raw sienna followed by a burnt sienna, a burnt umber right at the halo, and then back to burnt sienna again.  Last the very top was kissed with a translucent white to make it look almost imperceptibly brighter.  

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The underside of the cap was tricky because the shape of the stump was not to scale with the cap.  If I had painted it the way it was physically, it wouldn't make sense.  The eye knows what the bottom of a mushroom cap looks like, so, I thought, better give 'em what they want.  

I sculpted the center disc from clear matte gel, a product we order from Nova.  I tried to give it a slight bit of texture so it would read as being popped off or broken off.  I then added textured gills radiating out from it, and darkened the area where the gills meet the edge of the cap to faux in depth there.  

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And here it is- the finished mushroom.  

Convincing?

 
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Working outside in the Lizzy can be an exposure to the most extreme elements, but we have been so lucky to have beautiful weather while we fit and touch up the outdoor shows.  


First, a little update on what's been going on lately:

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Here is the finished inner above now that we have tied together the ceiling and painted the floor in place to match.  

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Here is the view of the house while standing in the inner above. 

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Our second long week has been SUPER productive.  While Thayne, Amanda and I have been leafing like crazy, our new paint shop assistant, Leah Ramilliano and Erin have been working on the floor for the outdoor shows.  Here you see Erin making sure all of the cracks in between the boards get painted using a syringe.   They used jaxsan to create woodgrain texture, even sculpting knotholes.  

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The sets also call for some realistic large bouldars.  These were carved from foam and coated with fiberglass to make them near indestructible since they need to withstand the weather and use outdoors for all three shows and for several months.  

Here Amanda coats the rocks next with Jaxsan (our miracle material) to begin giving them a rock-like texture.  

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Leah puts a finishing touch of a gloss spatter on one of the boulders.   

Below a finished painted rock sits on the set.  Right, a real rock I found in some landscaping.  
Not bad, right?
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This wee I had the chance to work on two gravestones for Cymbalene's Mother and Father.  Made up of a wooden base and a carved foam top, these gravestones need to be durable enough to sit and stand on, just like real stone.  

Here I am using jaxsan again to give the headstone a stone-like texture.  

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Next, the stones were given a quick paint job using a scumble with sponges and a series of spatters.  For a final touch, I spattered with first flat and then gloss sealers to give the stone a little glisten like granite.  









Next, I added some shadows and contours and a super white drybrush to bring out the highlights in the texture.  
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Now we have new gravestones.  Cymbalene's parents have been dead for 20 years, so we need to make these graves look like they have been exposed to the elements for 20 years.  

Erin and Leah have created several gallons of "moss" by coloring powdered sawdust with green paint.  Using glue, I clumped the sawdust on in places where water would gather and moss would grow.  

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Now to begin the aging process.  First a drippy raw umber glaze.  

Next I'll add a super dark as well as a super light lime green to bring out the moss.  

Here are the finished gravestones!  Ready to mark some graves!
 
Check this out:  I was featured in a few "snapshots"  on the osf website!

Cassandra Phillips: Scenic Artist