SCENERY PAINTING FOR THE AMATEUR MUSICAL THEATRE and PANTOMIME

NATIVITY SCENERY - page three
Designed, constructed and painted by Brian Willis
Performed by the Sunday School children of Croaghmore Presbyterian Church (Nr. Bushmills) December 2005

"NAZARETH" CLOTH
The elements of the above painting - arch, palms, houses, awnings etc were chosen and positioned to give me the best opportunity to show strong sunlight and shadows. With the shadows showing the undulating ground. These elements were also placed to give an interesting silhouette.
This small cloth (8 ft. x 8ft.) was framed by two palm tree wings which made a false proscenium, the whole being a free-standing self supporting unit. (Photo taken in the workshop under flourescent light. 5ltr. paint pot for scale)
CLOTH As an experiment this cloth was painted on a "Natural Cotton Twill Dust Sheet", you can just make out at the bottom the unpainted dust sheet. I screwed laths of timber to the wall for a frame and stapled the sheet to that before I sealed it. You can see the side ones protruding at the top. I sealed it with diluted PVA as usual and it worked very well. Now I don't know if the paint will crack when rolled up several times but I doubt it. Also I don't know how many times one can paint a different scene on the same cloth before the cracks come. But the cloth was so cheap that it doesn't really matter. Problems next time? Just buy another dust sheet. However I have not tried sewing two dust sheets together to make a bigger cloth, and wonder if there would be problems with different tension between the two sheets, but can't see it being a problem if you seal the joined cloths all at the same time so they dry at the same time.
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