South Pacific- the musical

[mburrell]

This is a backdrop ('South Pacific') I painted for the local high. 19' x 48' on billboard banner material with acrylic house paints last year. I'm painting over it for the 'Little Shop of Horrors'




detail of bird:



detail of wave:



detail of cove:

[hunterpaul]

what a shame to have to paint over this... I have appeared in south Pacific on two occasions, One being a National tour here in Britain, and the other time Playing Stewpot at the National Theatre, directed by the great sir Trevor Nunn... Never done Little shop of Horrors though... It must be difficult for you to put those first few strokes over such a huge and lovely art... Paul

[idylbrush]

I agree with Paul. What a shame.

[loobyteacher]

It really is a nice piece, but I understand when you are doing backdrops that you need to repaint over them. My students put up a mural for the art department and we repaint the boards yearly. Some are really nice and you kind of hate to see them go, but the new is always nice to see.

[chammi kaiser]

It certainly is a shame to have to paint over this lovely work. Hope you have a lot of fun with the new backdrops.

[mooz49]

Gorgeous work Mike and I love that bird ....he is such a cheeky handsome looking little chap and he knows it ..... At least you have the pictures to remind you what the backdrop looked like.

[skappy]

It is nice I wont paint over it
Robert

[mburrell]

Thank you for your comments. I painted billboards for years so painting over pieces is not new to me. It is as little like playing music or acting as Paul has done, it only last for a short time. I used a roller to paint a lot of this, pulling it, twisting it and bouncing it. Because the audience is so far away the painting can be very loose. I will be able to keep part of the sky on the next one.

[Charlie's Mum]

Nice back drop and sure the new one will be interesting - will you post it?

Painted many a back cloth and wing flats in my time too - nice to work on a grand scale

[Karen70]

As everyone else has said, what a shame to paint over this - it's very good.

[mburrell]

Well Maureen here are in progress pics of new backdrop. The first is my layout:

Here is day one, rough roll in. They had the set in place it was a very tight space to work in. I just rolled one color then poured new color into the same pan picking up some of the previous color, which made a bit of texture and harmonizes it with the other colors:
Here is some day two pictures:



Close up of hidden part of the building.



color a little better


final pics two days later:


This one shows part or the backdrop behind set:



I snapped a few chalk lines going each way from the VP then built the building on the left (a little orange) it has the water tower on top. I ran the other lines for the different floors off that building and the VP. I did the same with the building with the water tower on the right. The spacing for the doors and windows I felt into place. When I got to the end building it was so large I had to introduce a measuring point to figure the spacing of the doors and windows. I found a description of how to do it in Loomis' book 'Successful Drawing'

[mburrell]

Hey was it that bad? No comments? Or no one scrolling down this far?

[purplefire1]

It's awesome don't think people are scrolling this far I almost didn't but I'm glad I did