Letting you in on a secret...

Right off the bat I'd like to admit that I have not had it together enough to submit anything for the DCAC Wall Mountables show. Which is a shame because I probably wont remember to renew my membership this year without being in the show...Oh well, I still encourage everyone to go out an see this show, because there is always a great selection of artists, and it is good to support the DCAC in general.

I do have pictures to show of progress on the two other things I mentioned at the end of the last post. I have gotten over the first design "hump" for Joseph...

Joseph and the... TAP, Thomas Jefferson Theater
Photoshop Sketch of Pharaoh number

The director seemed to like my concepts for the entire show. He seems to have a good sense of humor, and wants to the show to be "Vegas/circus"...so that's what I'm shooting for with these quick photoshop sketches. I have developed a shorthand for sketching with photoshop that sometimes feels like cheating, but to be honest, it really speeds up workflow, and generates more ideas. Lots of people (like Ming Cho Lee, and other old guard theater fuddy duddies) are against using the computer as a tool in design. I can see where they are coming from with lots of people who design everything in CAD, because their work looks stilted and mechanized, but that is not what I am doing. I don't think its wrong to use the computer as the best-est collage tool ever. For someone like me who cant work if something becomes precious (by slaving over a drawing for example) its great to have a medium that can be undone, and rescaled, flipped, distorted, recolored and filtered without losing any of the work. I would go mad if a director wanted to change something in a design I spent three days inking...with this process, that is no longer an issue. So its not really cheating, its just a new tool; and my only sin is showing the process to you, and everyone else on the interwebs...

The other show that I have been working on this week (and I hope to have finished and installed by Monday...goodbye weekend!) is Trixie Little's Super Secret Show for the Fringe Festival

Backdrop design for Super Secret Show
Photoshop sketch for 12'x12' drop (Trixie and Monkey added for scale)

Hooch and Gun masking flats
Pencil Sketch and Photoshop

This should be a fun show. It was kinda last minute (everything with Trixie is...) (actually that is not entirely true. If we do have a concept early, it never seems to get enough steam to get off the ground...) Its a "Film Noir" show, which has a "body cavity search" effect...can you guess what is going in that big blank space on the backdrop? Anyway, I better get back to making this show a reality...Next week, I'll show you finished photos and let you know about the "Mermaid" backdrop I will be working on for the Virgin festival...