Painting Sketch for Playboy of the Western World's Ground Row

Here's a quick stab at painting the ground row for Playboy. Inspired in palette and style by the great Irish expressionist, Jack Yeats. (Specifically, the painting "Returning from the Bathe, Mid-Day," see the painting online at http://www.crawfordartgallery.com/Paintings/JBYeatsBathe.html)

Playboy of the Western World - Second Round of Sketches

First of the second round of sketches, with groundplan...

I tried a few different things with this iteration of the design. I made the roof beams slightly smaller, added some thatch to the roof, and did some more suggestive things with the profile of the back wall. I also added a tree SL and put a window in the back wall.

(In the sketch, i've moved the SR table. )

A Lesson Before Dying - Image Research

For once, I'm posting image research before renderings...

I'm working with a group of people on a scenic design for A Lesson Before Dying for class. The image research fell to me, though one of our group members, Tracey Gamble, supplied a few images of his own choosing.


Some of the themes of the play are Redemption, Freedom, Injustice, and Learning. It takes place in Louisiana in 1948.

You can buy the book this play is based on here.

Here is what amazon.com has to say about the book:

Amazon.com
Oprah Book Club® Selection, September 1997: In a small Cajun community in 1940s Louisiana, a young black man is about to go to the electric chair for murder. A white shopkeeper had died during a robbery gone bad; though the young man on trial had not been armed and had not pulled the trigger, in that time and place, there could be no doubt of the verdict or the penalty.

"I was not there, yet I was there. No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be..." So begins Grant Wiggins, the narrator of Ernest J. Gaines's powerful exploration of race, injustice, and resistance, A Lesson Before Dying. If young Jefferson, the accused, is confined by the law to an iron-barred cell, Grant Wiggins is no less a prisoner of social convention. University educated, Grant has returned to the tiny plantation town of his youth, where the only job available to him is teaching in the small plantation church school. More than 75 years after the close of the Civil War, antebellum attitudes still prevail: African Americans go to the kitchen door when visiting whites and the two races are rigidly separated by custom and by law. Grant, trapped in a career he doesn't enjoy, eaten up by resentment at his station in life, and angered by the injustice he sees all around him, dreams of taking his girlfriend Vivian and leaving Louisiana forever. But when Jefferson is convicted and sentenced to die, his grandmother, Miss Emma, begs Grant for one last favor: to teach her grandson to die like a man.

As Grant struggles to impart a sense of pride to Jefferson before he must face his death, he learns an important lesson as well: heroism is not always expressed through action--sometimes the simple act of resisting the inevitable is enough. Populated by strong, unforgettable characters, Ernest J. Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying offers a lesson for a lifetime.

More to follow.

Note: I do not own the copyrights to some of these images, which come from iStockphoto, Corbis, and Google Images, They are for research and in no way am I representing them as my own work.This constitutes fair use. If any trouble comes about because of this, I will simply take the images down.

The Playboy of the Western World - Image Research

Once again, this image research predates the process sketches for Playboy that I already posted, but I thought it important to post this anyway.

This collage contains a variety of imagery that make up our approach for the play, including work by Jack B. Yeats, an Irish expressionist who was friends with J. M. Synge. Other artists that influenced the design were Sean Keating, Walter Frederick Osborne, Frank Mckelvy. I've also included some photos I took, as well as selections from the various stock photography agencies (listed below).

The image that most influenced the design process on this show is "Returning from the Bathe, Mid-Day," by Jack B. Yeats, and you can find more information about the artist at
The Crawford Art Gallery

Note: I do not own the copyrights to some of these images, which come from iStockphoto, Getty Images, Corbis, Google Images, and various online galleries and museums. They are for research and in no way am I representing them as my own work.This constitutes fair use. If any trouble comes about because of this, I will simply take the images down.

The Playboy of the Western World - Belated Sketch Notes

Finally, some notes to accompany the two sketches from this post.

Both sketches employ the use of a raked deck, and theatrical gauze or scrim for the house's walls so that the Irish country side - wild, passionate and luxurious - can be seen at various points of the play's action, depending on how it's lit. However, the second sketch suggests this better and is also better suited to this approach.

The first sketch has more interesting angles to it, but this conveys a twisty-ness and mendacious quality. Although the play does contain some lies, e.g. Christy's bravado over the supposed murder of his father, the director and I felt that this was not the main theme of the play. The open, straight forward, rough and simple lines of the second sketch are more suited to the open and plain (if vigorous) nature of the play.

In both sketches, the fire is given a very prominent position, emphasizing the theme of fire in the play. Christy Mahon is burned by a turf log from the fire shortly before coming into his own as a man, which suggests the fire is a transforming influence. The play also takes place in the fall, a season that blazes with color.

The heavy roof beams create the sense of confinement, when the scrim wall is lit from the front, and can be reduced to silhouettes when the scrim wall is lit from behind, which dramatically opens the space. We wanted the space to blossom when Christy arrives, the Playboy of the Western World, and shows the residents of Mayo of the wild passionate possibilities in their lives.

After meeting with the director today, some more sketches will follow.

Here's the show blurb from the University of Alabama:

The Playboy of the Western World
by J.M. Synge

Synge invites you to visit the coast of Ireland and experience rural life in the early 1900s. Christy Mahon, a stranger in town, has arrived at Flaherty’s Public House, proclaiming he has killed his father and fled his former life. For the locals, this story rings of excitement, adventure, and enlivens their otherwise dull and dreary world. They relish in Mahon’s story and even Mike Flaherty’s daughter, Pegeen, seems to have fallen for his adventurous charm. But when Mahon’s past catches up with him, will the locals still embrace his heroism or leave him stranded?

Playing at Gallaway Theatre at the University of Alabama

February 26 - March 2, 2008
Tuesday - Saturday at 7:30pm
Saturday and Sunday at 2:00pm

You can buy tickets to the show online at:
http://www.as.ua.edu/theatre/calendar.html

Bouncers - Image Research

In my design process, image research comes before sketches, and often before first meetings with directors (with maybe some more research after the first or second meeting.)

But, I've only just yesterday put this research into a collage format for easy viewing. In my meetings with the director, I simply showed the images one by one. I also thought that it would be nice to put as much of the process work as possible online here.

Without further ado, the Bouncers Image Research Collage:


Note: I do not own the copyrights to some of these images, which come from iStockphoto, Corbis, Google Images, and various online galleries and museums. They are for research and in no way am I representing them as my own work.This constitutes fair use. If any trouble comes about because of this, I will simply take the images down.

The Playboy of the Western World - Preliminary Sketches Round 1

Here are two of the preliminary sketches for the next show I'm designing, The Playboy of the Western World. I'll add some more notes on the design at a later time.