drop painting workshop

Ohio Northern University // 2015
Ohio Northern University hosted a drop painting workshop for any student.  I took part in a 350 hour project to learn how to make a back drop. 
"There are not a lot of scenic artists who work on back drops anymore. "
Ohio Northern brought in Jill Davis who teaches at Case Western Reserve University and Brian Ruggaber to help design the set for the Drowsy Chaperone.  They ran the workshop and taught us how to make a 1,100 square foot drop. 
Drops , or oleos, are used as a background or as a curtain.  They are very very large.  To start out you have to spread out the fabric and staple gun it to the floor.  At the ends of the fabric are 2 X 4s to keep the fabric lifted off of the ground. 

The fabric is canvas. We used a wash to go across the fabric that once dry, allows for paint to stick on it. 
The next step is to pounce a grid across the big piece of fabric.  It's hard to "organize" that large piece of fabric.  Taking chalk lines and creating a grid on the fabric allows for tracing the design on top of it a lot easier.  

Some specific parts of the design are cut out and charcoal pounced on top of the fabric so they can begin painting the outlines. 
The next step is to get the basics done.  The main colors were red and green on this piece.  This is the longest part. 
The next step after all the main colors are done was to speckle some texture on top.  We used purple.  Then you continue outlining the main points. 
Creating shadows from far away looks funny up close, but with watered down purple you can create a drop shadow.  Start darker near the edge and add more water as you go  down. 
Here's the final product.  The shadows look really good from far away and the highlights of white and yellow make everything pop. 
 As we stumble along on life's funny journey...  ~ Drowsy Chaperone