Painting a Prop

        October was a busy month! I finished the Inktober challenge, which is always challenging and fun. During the same time, I was working on this prop for a stage production of Oliver Twist put on by A Passion for the Arts. They are an artistic organization that works with homeschool families to expose children to acting, literature, stage production, character development, etc. Every new performance improves on the last. I fully support what they do, and have been privileged to occasionally volunteer to work on props for the director, Caryl Lipnick.


         I inherited this beast of a prop and asked to make it look like a storefront for a bookstore. Before I started, Caryl, the props manager, and I went over style, font, color temperature and feel of the prop so the result would mesh with the look of the whole production. Physically, the work was more than I had expected, because the canvas was so large and heavy. I had to carefully lug it in and out of the prop room and then straddle it at odd angles and squat or kneel in order to reach areas to paint without ruining the paint, my clothes, or the ground. Also, an unexpected difficulty was deciding which part of the bookstore to paint first. If I got it out of order, the work would take much longer, and I didn't have that kind of time. But by now, you know how much I love a good challenge, and those problems made it more interesting. I had estimated 18 hours of work; it turned out to be 24. There are two things that I would do differently next time I have a similar project. I would use a stencil for the title, and I would leave more time for the precise structure of a building. Instead of a stencil, I had found a font I liked, measured and spaced the letters, drew each letter, and then hand-painted each one with 3 or 4 layers, which took a long time. Also, in the past, I've painted more abstract or natural subjects which can be fudged if I made a mistake, whereas with this storefront, everything was right angles and sharp, hard lines, which meant I had to mask the shapes with tape and keep a steady hand if it was going to look crisp. 


            This picture is the final look of my prop. Although I was hoping for more time to add details to the books and window reflections and font, I'm proud of what I did and proud of the quality of the play.