The Floor - Part1 - 'Preparation'

The reference

 
The cloths have been painted and folded;
the flats their final spatter and trompe.
Admist paintcalls for any final work and touch-ups, we had to come up with an efficient way to paint the floor design.

tricks of the trade!

First thing that is considered for the floor paint call is time.
We had a full day to paint the floor. We would have to paint over the exisiting black, which would probably take two coats. Then mark out and paint the rope design corresponding with the reference.

The design itself was brown paper decorated with a rope-print design. To simulate the brown paper effect would take a long time as we would have to consider the time it takes to paint the perfectly thin pinstripe line effect and again how long that would take to dry.
So, Luisa and Gary came to a decision to paint the floor in just the base brown colour, giving us more time to work with the rope.
The rope design's straight lines and knots could be reproduced using a stencil and a roller, but we had to come up with something to make the loops.

hard work goes into cutting a stencil

Knot and line stencils

Maisie, Sarah and Rachael, "got in aboot it" and started making the straight line and knot stencils.

straight lines of rope!

I'd become very attached to the idea of using rollers to create a printy texture for backgrounds and effects. It was the obvious next step on our roller discovery when Luisa and Gary got together and came up with the rope print roller.

"wee bit of foam, stick it on a roller - job's a good'un!"

 After seeing the negative shapes as the line stencil was being cut, Gary came up with the idea of placing a piece of foam in the shape of the stencil cutouts onto a roller to create a rolling stamp.
So, Luisa's job was to make the prototype.

work, work

 Using the roller along the stencil, you could see where the pattern would fall, so Luisa was able to place the faom shapes at the correct place.

fixing the foam shapes to roller

materials

The finished prototype

festive colors making me feel all christmassy :D

Isn't it amazing the joy that can be gotten from a little red paint and a sponge. :D

a little roller texture to brighten up your day!

 So we had a plan for the base colour. We would start our paint call at 9am and hopefully have 2 coats of brown on the stage before lunch. Then marking up and applying the rope could be worked on for the rest of the afternoon.

cont'd in The Floor Part2