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istock.com Painting the scene A beginner’s guide to tools and techniques

BY SEAN O’SKEA if the thought of painting your high-tech , the tools and ma- started. Set aside some time to play and scenery makes you shudder, don’t be terials needed for good scenic are experiment with , when you have ashamed. Many educators have within even the most limited budget. no pressure or worries about “messing remarkably little training in scenic art. If you are a beginner, this article will it up,” and you’ll soon gain confidence Most only get a few days of painting in introduce you and your students to the and skills. Please visit my website, an undergraduate stagecraft class. But basic information you need to greatly www.oskea.com, for downloadable scene painting is the final surface of enhance your scenic art. With a few handouts that expand on the informa- your set. The paint is what the audi- techniques at your command, you can tion in this article. ence is actually going to see. Terrific stop the and boring “paint-by-num- and stagecraft can be made bers” approach and begin adding life The tools to look shabby under a clumsy paint and sparkle to your work. However, job. The good news is, beginning these tips will only be useful if you Paint scenic art has a gentle learning curve. actually roll up your sleeves and try the •By far, professional scenic paint like It is an easy journey from “Which end techniques out for yourself. You can’t that made by Rosco is the best choice of the brush do I hold?” to a competent expect your students to master paint- for scene painting. Even Rosco’s Off paint job on your scenery or props. It’s ing fundamentals if you don’t learn the Broadway economy line outperforms also nice to know that in our age of skills yourself. And don’t wait until a house paint in texture, saturation, increasingly complicated and expensive few days before opening night to get and binders. If you can afford

22 TEACHINGTEACHING THEATRE THEATRE it, get it. Unfortunately, at twenty to fifty dollars a gallon (depending on ’skea color), it can be out of the range of a sean O lot of schools. If you do choose to use professional scene paint, find a distrib- utor where you can pick up the paint yourself. Paint is heavy, and the ship- ping cost for a dozen gallons can be staggering. Some distributors may be willing to offer special rates for schools if you are buying in large quantities. Make sure you ask. Don’t worry if you can only afford hardware store house paint to start. The in house paint will be of inferior quality, and you won’t be able to get vividly saturated . These tools and brushes are all that you need to do most basic scenic painting techniques. Clockwise, from left: a hand- Plus, you might have some unpleas- held garden sprayer; a sea sponge; a respirator; a few watercolor brushes; a one-inch Purdy sash-brush; a four-inch ant surprises if you start mixing hardware-store brush; and a selection of -bristle “chip brushes.” colors. But you can still do a lot with an economy-brand house paint that filler in the deep base won’t allow for they range in price from a few dollars to often can be had for around fifteen an opaque color. around twenty or thirty dollars. A one- dollars a gallon, usually regardless of In short, the darker or more satu- inch brush from Purdy holds a great deal color. Shop around: you may find a rated the color, the deeper the base of paint and discharges it very smoothly, store that will offer you an education- paint needs to be. Of course, no mater making it an excellent, economical al discount. For class projects where what paint brand you choose, be sure choice for lining, lettering, or any place the exact colors aren’t important, you are working with water-based latex where a sharp edge is desirable. you can use the paint most hardware acrylic . paint is great for fine You will also need some big brushes stores sell (or give away!) when they art, but its very long drying time, nasty to apply large quantities of paint fast. have mismatched a color. These will clean-up, and strong fumes make it a The best choice would be a three- or typically be colors popular in house bad choice for theatre sets. four-inch-wide Purdy or other qual- interiors, so you’ll find a lot of off- ity nylon bristle brush. Unfortunately, whites and , but these are fine Brushes these brushes can cost as much as sixty to practice techniques. •A professional might have dollars. Luckily, the job of laying-in lots When buying house paint it’s best dozens of different types of brushes, of paint doesn’t require a high-quality to buy flat-sheen paint. It’s usually but for a school shop, four or five basic brush. Many hardware store brands are cheaper, shows better, and it’s brushes can accomplish a lot. All of acceptable for this job. You simply need a lot easier to make something glossy these brushes can be found in hard- a sturdy, wide brush that holds a lot of by adding a coat of shellac or poly- ware or paint stores. paint. It’s a good idea to invest in sev- urethane than trying to dull down a China-bristle “chip brushes” are eral large brushes so you can have lots surface that should be flat. perfectly good for many basic scenic of painters working. The hardware store You can also buy universal pig- painting applications. They have the brand will be around twenty dollars. ments in fluid form from a paint store huge advantage of being very cheap, and mix these into paint bases for your so you can afford a lot of brushes for a Rollers own colors. Quality scenic paint can class full of students, and if (as hap- •Nothing beats a well maintained and also tint house paint. If you choose with students) brushes are not properly employed roller for getting a this route, be sure you understand the cleaned properly, they can be dis- lot of paint onto a lot of surface fast. different levels of paint bases. Your carded and replaced without breaking Rollers have distinct pros and cons, but store will have three or four bases (de- your budget. A one-inch chip bush will for base coating a floor or back paint- pending on the brand), starting with a likely cost about fifty cents. Buying in ing scenery, it’s hard to beat. You can white/pastel base. There will be a mid- bulk makes them even cheaper. Even also achieve a number of quick tex- tone base and then a deep or accent two-inch and three-inch bushes will tures and effects with different covers. base. The white base has a lot of filler only cost a dollar or two. in it to give coverage to pastel colors. It’s a good idea to have a few bet- Sponges No amount of pigment poured into a ter-quality brushes. Purdy makes a •A few good softball-sized sea sponges pastel base is going to give you a rich, wide range of readily available brushes. are essential. The whole category of saturated color. Likewise, the lack of Depending on the bristle and the width, sponging techniques requires them.

TEACHINGTEACHING THEATRE THEATRE 23 23 They can also be used with . no protection at all from vapors and never find a recipe that read: “Step Find natural sea-sponges, as synthetic fumes. one: bake cake.” Instead there would sponges just don’t give the same re- With the brushes and tools de- be instructions on sifting flower, cream- sults. Sea-sponges have gotten pretty scribed thus far you can begin to apply ing butter, folding egg whites, etc. expensive recently (ten dollars or more nearly all the basic scene painting Scene painting is the same way. The for a good-sized sponge), but well techniques. There are plenty of other most elaborate paint treatments are all maintained they can last for years. tools even a shop with a tight bud- sophisticated combinations of a few get can afford. For more information, dozen or so basic techniques. The most Sprayers check out the Brush Basics handout on useful are also some of the easiest to •Most scene shops will have a number my website. learn. Below are the first six you and of paint sprayers. Pneumatic spray- your students should learn. ers are actually fairly affordable if you Cleaning brushes and already have a compressor. If not, you •rollers Applying paint can get a lot out of garden sprayers After making the investment in qual- •I will frequently assign first-time paint like those originally made by the Hud- ity tools, you must learn to maintain crew students a base-coat project, a son Company. These are air-tight can- them. For brushes and rollers that simple “Here, take this and paint that.” isters with a hand pump to pressurize means carefully cleaning and storing I’ll come back later and see the student the paint. You can achieve a number of after each use. To start, shake or comb halfway through the job they should quick and easy spray effects. Sprayers off excess paint into your slop bucket. have finished fifteen minutes earlier. are perfect for painting objects with a Run water over the brush while gently Then I realize I hadn’t taught the stu- lot of surface area—like louvered shut- flexing the bristles in your hand. You dent how to paint yet. ters, for example. Most have the ability may use a steel comb but do not use A couple of simple things can make to adjust the size of the droplets from a wire brush on a brush you hope to painting much more efficient. But like a fine mist to a resembling a use again. Once the water is running learning how to focus a light or drive a spattering technique. clear (if water the color of the paint screw, even the basics must be taught. Excellent preparation and clean-up is still running out of the brush, it still First of all, almost all paint can be is essential for effective sprayer use. has paint in it), dip the brush in soapy thinned. Not only does thinner paint Paint destined for the sprayer must be water and swish it around a bit. Then go on easier, it also stretches the paint. very thin—no thicker than cream. The rinse the brush again. Shake out excess I once presented students with a new thinned paint must pass through a fine water and gently shape the bristles five-gallon bucket of black and asked sieve to catch any bits that would clog back into order with your hand. Hang them to paint the floor after the equipment. Finally the sprayer must up the brush or lay it flat. Never rest a strike. A bit later they came to find me. be absolutely cleaned out every time. wet brush on its bristles. When I asked if they were finished, Any paint left in the hoses or nozzle To clean a roller, scrape off the they said, no, they had run out of will dry and clog the sprayer. Disas- excess paint into your slop bucket paint. I had intended that bucket to last semble and thoroughly. Then run with a scraper (many have round the whole term. clean water through the sprayer until notches in the blade perfect for this By simply adding water to acrylic- you see no trace of paint. job). Submerge the roller in a bucket based paint, not only do you stretch When spraying water-based paint of water and vigorously shake. Run the the paint considerably, but the paint from a garden sprayer, especially roller under the sink until the water flows better—like from a fountain if the spray is not too fine, a runs clear. A “bicycle pump”- —quickly filling grain and dust-mask will offer some protec- centrifugal roller cleaner is worth the cracks, and significantly limiting the tion. But be aware, when using much investment. Use it to wring out excess number of trips back to the bucket more powerful pneumatic sprayers, water when you’re done washing. Find to recharge your brush. Furthermore, or worst of all, -spray paint, a way to let them dry with no part of the wonderful world of glazing tech- you should always wear a respirator. the fuzz touching anything. Hang them niques (more on that soon) depends Spray paint is fast and and your on a nail or on a string through the on thinned paint. High quality scenic students are going to like using it, middle. Standing them on end will cre- paints can be diluted as much as a but it’s also very toxic. Even with the ate a hard ridge on the end. Any place one-part-paint-to-three-parts-water ratio respirator, use sprayers in a booth or where the wet fuzz touches as it dries and still perform, but even house paint outside, if possible. If your school will dry matted in that spot and can can be thinned significantly. has a rule against using respirators leave unwanted next time you Next, make sure your students know (and some do), get some N95 particu- use the roller. to dip the brush in half-way to two- late masks from 3M. These are paper thirds up the bristles, knock the brush masks, but they have a respirator Basic techniques on the inside of the can (don’t scrape valve. Do not use plain dust masks If you decided to bake a cake and across the rim) to shake off excess, when using spray-paint: they offer pulled down a cookbook, you would and then start in the middle of the

24 TEACHINGTEACHING THEATRE THEATRE ’skea sean O

Above and top right: Scumbling begins by painting a few patches of the colors you are blending and whisking them toward each other. At right, the blended colors soon produce a handsome, organic-looking blend of the two colors, with soft edges but both original colors still discernable. Lower right: An example of spattering with thin black and brown paints. By changing the size, color, opacity, and density of dots you can achieve countless variations. object being painted, working outward batches to keep the paint wet. Then Spattering towards the edge. When painting a flat gently but vigorously work the paint •Spattering (not splattering, although for example, students might take a fully on the surface in a “whisk-broom” that happens) is an excellent way to charged brush and plop it right on the cross-hatch fashion. quickly add tonality or texture over edge of the flat and then squeegee off When two colors meet, blend them large areas. Like sponging, vastly differ- a whole load of runs down the side of and soften their edges but do not over- ent results can be achieved by varying the flat, making a mess and wasting work and mix the colors to a complete- , angle, and distance. Simply paint and time. ly new color. Beginners often make the dip the tips of the bristles of a flat, Finally, painting is hard work. It takes mistake of applying too much paint so wide brush into the pant, and snap vigorous brushstrokes to move a lot of that the blending just mixes to a third your wrist so that the brush comes to paint efficiently. If your students are lan- color and the cloudy, patchy bits of the a stop roughly parallel with the surface guorously dabbing the surface with the original colors are overrun. being painted. bush, it’s going to take forever and the Scumbling takes a little practice but A wet brush can be allowed to gen- result will be streaky and lumpy. it is an easy technique that is the base tly drip onto the surface or it can be Here are six specific techniques, for literally thousands of scenic art ef- slapped against your hand to violently most of which are illustrated in photo- fects and faux finishes. Next time you fling paint at the surface. A dryer brush graphs on pages xx and xx. need faux or flagstone, try a shaken vigorously near the surface scumble of black and white instead of typically results in finer dots. Scumbling flat gray. Encourage your students to On the other extreme, a wet brush •Scumbling is a good place to start prac- see how many natural surfaces can be with thin paint shaken from a distance ticing your painting skills. The terms suggested with just a scumble. Have can result in wild -like scumble, wet blend, and color wash them try to recreate different kinds of splats. Let your students experiment so are often used interchangeably, though stone, old , hazy skies, and they understand how to achieve differ- there are distinctions. Don’t worry even simple marbles. Even a painted ent effects. Spattering is extremely use- about differences now—just start with in a realistic interior can benefit ful for suggesting a variety of natural two (or more) colors of paint on a dry from a scumble. Instead of a flat color, surfaces, from to granite. basecoat. try scumbling one value higher and Spattering a fine spray of contrasting Use a wide, soft brush and daub one shade lower than the target color. or complementary colors to the basic blobs of each color in a random pat- You’ll get a richer, deeper, more dra- field color is an excellent way to add tern over the surface. Work in small matic effect. richness and depth to scenery. Work

TEACHINGTEACHING THEATRE THEATRE 25 25 ’skea sean O

Top left: A sea sponge is used to apply black and green paint. Top right: the tips of the brush are used in an up and down daubing motion to stamp a controlled pattern of dots. The results are similar to spattering or sponging but are much more controlled. Lower right: The dark diagonal strip at the top of this is an example of a glaze. Here a brush charged with thin black paint was pulled across the already dry brown paint, producing a translucent, water-color quality. The brown lines in the middle are an example of dry brushing. Lower left: A simple two-part paper . Here the card stock was covered with clear packing tape before cutting out the pattern.

with the to choose Some amazingly vivid and fast wood When cutting out a stencil, place it colors similar to the gel colors selected. grain effects can be created with the right on something soft such as a piece of When tinted light is directed onto a sur- colors and a good dragging or dry brush- Styrofoam. That way you can use the face with a similar-colored spatter, the ing technique. The dragging tool doesn’t whole knife blade, not just the very tip. dots of paint will reflect the light and have to be a brush. Try torn cardboard, It’s so much easier. Use sprayers, stip- create a subtle shimmer effect that can burlap, sponges, even fingers and see pling brushes, or sponges to apply paint make scenery pop beautifully. what results you get. through stencils. A dirty water spatter is an excellent Plastic “For Rent”-type signs make way to quickly “age” freshly painted Stencils excellent stencil stock, as does overhead scenery. Simply spatter the surface with •Everyone is familiar with stencils, but projection . Kitchen cutting mats an extremely diluted grey or brown. It you may not know how wonderfully made of polyethylene are also inexpen- will be hardly perceptible when it dries creative you can get with your own sten- sive, easy to cut, and virtually indestruc- but the surface won’t have that freshly cils. It’s a good idea to consider making tible. Some even have the advantage of painted look. a stencil anytime you need to paint a lot being translucent enough to trace from of one thing: a brick wall, a wallpaper an original placed under the mat. Dry brushing pattern, paving stones, or simply a deco- Try generating an image in a comput- •Dry brushing is another somewhat mis- rative motif you would like to repeat in er program and printing it on leading term that can refer to more than multiple places on the set. cardstock, then cut out the pattern with one technique. Dry brushing can mean Stencils can be cut out of countless a knife and paint both sides of the simply using a stiff-bristled brush with materials. The choice of material de- paper with shellac. These paper stencils a small amount of thick paint to drag a pends on the complexity of the are surprisingly durable. They’re easy to pattern of parallel lines across a surface. and how much use it will get. A simple make, and extra copies can be gener- But the term can also refer to the process embellishment that will only be re- ated so multiple can work at one of allowing a base coat to dry and then peated a few times can be made of just time. You can even use sturdy craft applying a glaze (a very watery coat) and about anything, even plain card stock. glue to fasten multiple sheets together dragging a clean, dry brush through the Of course you can purchase pre-cut before cutting and shellacking to make glaze, creating a grain and allowing por- stencils at a craft store, but more often larger stencils. Detailed or fragile sten- tions of the base coat to show through. than not you’ll want to create your own. cils or stencils with islands of negative

26 TEACHINGTEACHING THEATRE THEATRE Online scenic painting resources There are a lot of online resources to help you refine your painting skills. My own website offers downloads of the handouts referred to in this article (www.oskea.com/Downloads.html). I’ve found these four company websites particularly useful. Dick Blick has a handy PDF chart on brush shapes, sizes, and materials. www.dickblick.com/info/brushshape Purdy Brushes features a series of short videos demonstrating basic brush use and care. www.purdycorp.com Rosco Laboratories “Scenic Products” includes a series of step-by-step projects on creating all kinds of faux surfaces. www.rosco.com/technotes/ index.asp Cobalt ’s page offers information on their Teachers Training Scene Painting course and other more advanced seminars and workshops. www. cobaltstudios.net/training/programindex.htmledu/acts/ —S.O. space can be glued to fine netting and as simple as a cast shadow (something then attached to a wood frame. I’ll talk I’ll explain in a article) can add about stencils in more detail in a future enormous depth to your sets. article. Obviously, professional scenic artists have enormous skill, talent, and years Glazing of training. But there’s no reason you •Glazing has already been mentioned, and your students can’t improve the but it’s an important technique in its scenic art on your very next set by own right. Once you’re comfortable beginning to master the simple tech- working with glazes you’ll wonder niques like those described here. what you ever did without them. A In the next issue of this journal we’ll glaze is any thin, translucent coat of take on a classroom paint project that paint applied to a dry undercoat so the will use a number of these skills. undercoat is still perceptible under the In the meantime, for more infor- glaze. Glazes are great for distressing. mation on the tools and techniques Your play is set in an old, run-down we’ve reviewed, go to the Basic Tech- boarding house? Walk around the set niques link on my website. If you’re with a bucket of very thin dark brown interested in more hands-on help, paint and sea-sponge and daub high- check to see if your local college or traffic surfaces: around doorknobs, theatre offers any sort of scene paint- switches, along baseboards, below win- ing workshops. EdTA and the United dows, etc. Suddenly your fresh paint States Institute for Theatre Technology job looks twenty years old. During tech (USITT) sometime offer tech theatre you realize your floor treatment is too training at their conferences. There are bright? No worries—just go over it with other options as well: Cobalt a darker glaze to tone it down. in upstate New York, for example, has Glazes are also an essential part of a week-long summer session designed other techniques like the dry-brush specifically for teachers who want to drag described above. Rag-rolling is a improve their scenic art skills, no prior good glazing technique to start with. experience required. To do it, lay down a glaze and use a But by far, the best thing you can do bunched-up dry, clean rag to lift off is to start playing with paint. See you portions of the paint. in the winter issue. Happy painting. Another glazing technique, frottage, is a fancy name for pressing sheets of Sean O’Skea is an associate professor of newspaper or fabric onto a wet glaze design in Southern Oregon University’s and then lifting it off to create a quick Department of Theatre. He teaches a subtle patterned effect. course in scene painting for teachers at Finally, explore what you can do Cobalt Studios. Over fifteen years, he’s with highlight and shadow. You can created dozens of scenic and light- create amazing 3-D effects with trompe ing at professional l’oeil techniques, but even something throughout the country.

TEACHING THEATRE 27 Originally published in Dramatics magazine. More info: Schooltheatre.org