Good for my humility :)

I'm designing hair & makeup for a production of Macbeth that opens this Friday.  This is a very active production - lots of sword fighting with real swords, not plastic or wooden ones, and the witches have some pretty creepy movement when they're not playing Messenger #1, Lady's Maid #2, etc.  All this means that, for example, fight call takes a lot of time because there's so much to rehearse.  (Fight call is when the performers go through their fight choreography, first at half speed, then at full speed.  This is a very important safety procedure.)

Our costumers are still putting finishing touches on the players' armor, cloaks, etc., and the lighting and sound are still being tweaked.  All this to say that our director has a LOT of pieces to look at and make decisions on.  So far, I've gotten only one note, on the first version of Witch #1's wig.  Just finding the time to ask her a question when she doesn't look like her brain will explode serves to remind me that, while not unimportant, hair & makeup is well down most directors' list of things that they need to render a decision on.  In fact, one of the cast told me that this is the first production she's been in that even had a hair & makeup person.

Bottom line:  It's important to me because that's where my focus is.  Other people, however, have a LOT more things competing for their attention, so my priority and theirs don't align.  I'm not whining, just laughing ruefully at myself.

(My witches won't look like this but I liked the photo.)

That bonnet I was working on

 Here are some pics of the bonnet, all trimmed and ready to go.  I was pretty happy w/ how it turned out.  I'd do the ribbon ties differently in future, but otherwise it looked perfect on the wearer and on stage.

 

 

Getting crafty

 I decided to use my February show as an excuse to buy an undecorated bonnet, which I'm trimming and will lend to the production.  The lace and ribbon are all from my stash.  I wasn't too sure about this lace, but since I'm not worrying about historical accuracy (the bonnet shape is at least 10 years out of date for the production), I decided to use it, if only to save myself a trip.  Sewing on the lace through this tightly woven straw is slow going, but I'm really liking how it looks so far.

This class is gonna kick my butt

One of the classes I'm taking this semester is called Rendering for the Theater I.  It's intended to teach basic drawing and sketching techniques to people interested in theater design (mostly costumes, but also sets).  After just 2 classes, I'm already feeling the pressure.  The instructor moves at quite a good clip!  She has 2 grad students to help her, and there are only about 10 or 12 of us in the class, so not a lot of competition for the TAs' time, but this is my first-ever drawing class and it's got me intimidated!

I'll just keep reminding myself of last semester's Scene Painting class.  I survived that one, I'll survive this one.  And that instructor suggested I take this class.  I don't think she'd have pointed me to a class I'd flunk out of. :)

Self-indulgent weekend

Because the Chief is in heavy-duty study mode (the US Tax Court exam is just 3 months away), I've been looking around for excuses to stay out of the house so he can study with fewer distractions.  This weekend was perfect for that - I spent Saturday at a G&S sing an hour's drive away, giving him nearly 12 distraction-free hours.  Sunday was another 6 hours, as I headed off to a Regency bonnet-making workshop.  I didn't get my bonnet finished, but I did get a good start on it, along with a very pretty bit of ribbon and some ideas for decorating it once I finish wiring the brim.  The workshop was at a tea room in a little antique shop out near hunt country.  It was a tiny little village, which would make a nice day trip once the Chief gets past The Exam.

Gotta love it - I was able to indulge not just one but two hobbies without feeling guilty about "abandoning" the Chief.  No, I was doing him a favor, giving him so many distraction-free study hours. :)

That's the first class finished...

Today was the last session of my Fundamentals of Theatrical Design class.  No final exam, thank heaven!  Instead, we had a final project due today - a Cornell box based on our design concept (earlier projects) for Sarah Ruhl's play, Eurydice.  We've been working on these in class over the past couple of weeks, with lots of helpful suggestions from our instructors, two MFA Design candidates (one scenic, one costumes).  I was amazed at how many different takes on the same story our class came up with, each of them with its own unique spark of genius.

I'm not thrilled with how my box turned out, but it isn't horrible.  Given that I've never tried anything remotely like it, I think it's OK, and some of my classmates had very nice things to say about it.  After literally losing sleep over it (I'd wake up during the night and my brain would start working on what to put in it, how to arrange this or that, how to anchor the glasses...), at this point I'm just relieved to have it behind me.  No idea what kind of grade I'll get for it, but I've got an A+ (101.56%, thanks to a bonus paper I turned in for "insurance") for everything else I've done this semester, so unless the instructors really hate it, I think I've got at least a B+ for the class.

This was quite an education in techniques.  I had to decide what kind of paint to use on the box so the wood grain would show through; I settled on well-watered acrylics, and ended up not sealing it with anything.  Anchoring the shelf was another challenge; regular nails were too big, screws ditto, and finishing nails tended to push the shelf supports away from the box.  I ended up relying on wood glue, which was OK because the heaviest thing on the shelf is the clock, which has no battery in it.  I had to use glue to keep the string wrapped around the nails, and museum putty to anchor the clock and the glasses in the bottom.

One of the instructors suggested "distressing" the clock so it wouldn't look so new and the purple paint wouldn't look so bright.  I first sprinkled it with water and dunked it in the ashes in the grill.  That didn't really work - the ashes didn't adhere to the plastic very well - so I set it in some used coffee grounds overnight.  That did the trick; once I shook off the excess, it looked old (which it's not) and dirty (which it definitely is, now).

Some of it was fun, like the painting once I figured out what technique to use.  (Scene Painting tips and techniques came in handy here.)  The glasses were a happy thrift-shop find, as were the glass "pebbles", seashells, and dyed nutshells that went into them.  Lots of idea were raised and discarded along the way - this art thing is quite a complicated, drawn-out process! :D