Albert Herring's model box

I fully intended to explore the world of prop making in my third year, but was sidetracked in the Scenic department as I discovered the huge learning curve for me that existed in there.

As 3rd years we're given the opporutnity to manage a show, as I decided to stay in Paintshop, I was offered the experience of managing an Opera.


That opera was 'Albert Herring'.

The wee hoose that turned out to be awfy big!

This faced me with a huge challenge as I felt I was still finding my feet in Paintshop.

Considering the time I had to paint, the team of people available to work and the info I got from the workshop about builds coming to us, I made a very rough schedule.


I'd never used Microsoft Excel, but it looked professional and concise. Methinks I may need some time on that at a later date, cause frankly it freaked me out -  heh

Greengrocers outside

Greengrocers inside

 Eventually I made a schedule which gave me an idea of when items needed to be completed and in what order they would be done in.

the model of the roof of the Butcher

 I have to say at this point, that I had given a fair bit of consideration to what i'd be learning during this experience. I'd hopefully learn how much communication and organising goes into being a head scenic artist and learn to cope with teaching others whilst trying to keep myself and the painting on schedule.
Albert Herring was a reasonably small show and therefore a good choice for me to take on a manager role.
I still wanted to be able to learn things myself and thought about which areas I'd like to have a practise at.


Sign writing is something I've wanted to try for a while now. I'd imagine it'd help, by muscle memory to encourage a steady hand. I won't say I've mastered it, but I loved it :)

Luisa lovin the door!

I also considered at this point, who I had working with me. Initially I had just two other third years and in later weeks I would have some first years.
I looked at Luisa and Karen as people I could trust to do a good job. We had a schedule and we just got on with it.
There was a few items that could be used for our portfolios so I asked if there was anything that Luisa and Karen would like to do. Luisa fancied some sign writing and to work out the doily stencil and Karen fancied the Bakery and 'The Cock' pub sign. - That was slotted into the schedule.

How to recreate the 60's? - ask Karen

Next..
Time to be picking colours and ordering paint!

The Bakery model

I basically sat with the model pieces and matched their colours to a chart. I am still learning to calculate how much paint will cover an area. I have a much better idea than I did last October, but when it came to actually spending money on my estimations, it was time to get advice from Gary.
We bought a tin of color for each item, then went over the list looking cut down any unnecessary tins.
Since most of the set consisted of shop fronts and signs, Gary could foresee that we would need glaze and a good white paint 'exhibition white' from Flints

I feel it was pretty important to become familiar with the model pieces. I thought a lot about their story, who lived in them and what was their story also.
This Opera is a comedy/farce. The set design was realised by Anna Jones. She described it as a cross between 'League of Gentlemen' and 'Wallace and Gromit'
So everything was to be a little grimy, a little odd.

shiny!

What Anna created was an odd little village setting, complete with telephone, post box and street lamp. A quaint little place that was a little out of sync with the rest of reality in an oversized way. Made me think of 'The Slaughtered Lamb' pub in American Werewolf in London.

The Newsagents that sells only cigarettes, icecream and lemonade!

We had the Newsagent and Bakery pieces and the doily to work on initially.

The doily! - should we use a stencil for that?!? :P

NEXT : The Village Shops - Newsagents and Bakery.