SCENERY PAINTING FOR THE AMATEUR MUSICAL THEATRE and PANTOMIME
Me and My Girl - Page seven - Door of number 21 - bookflat
Designer Liam Berry. Backcloths by Brian Willis.
Performed by the pupils of Cross and Passion College, Ballycastle (2004)
A bookflat designed to marry in with the backcloth. Hence the same coloured brickwork. Behind this piece will go a wing. The door is practical. 5 ltr paint tin for scale although there is also some of the detritus from my painting tools lying about in this photo. The right hand edge of this bookflat is deliberately hard to discern. This is a trompe l'oeil 3D painting, and the two flats are in reality only two inches thick. The door is apparently 'set back' within the brickwork but this is achieved by painting. Below are the two flats separated. The straight bottoms show the true shape of the flats.

 

I had to use all sorts of subterfuges to conceal the join.

My biggest problem was the concrete lintel. However I solved this by painting apparent streaks of green mould dribbling down the lintel where the two flats joined.

The strange overall shape (rather like a fireplace I feel) is to account for the diagonal bracing on the back.

 

Both the above flats have been photographed straight on, so you can see that in the left hand flat I painted the door panels over to the left to help the illusion. That's only half a door handle! This door is actually set into the flat by only about an inch (Which explains why the door handle has disappeared in the top photo.) However, the audience to the right of the stage will see this handle.

Most of the artwork and perspective was done once the two flats were hinged together. I could never have worked it out when they were separated.

The "hole" near the ground, left of the door, is a "boot scraper" still seen set into the walls of older houses in the UK.
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