What the Heck is a Scenic Artist?
.... I'd like to invite you into my studio for a glimpse of what we've been working on over the past ten days. I am in charge of painted scenery for the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where we are in the midst of building a fascinating show called Head of Passes. Essentially, we're building a large two-story house, piece by piece. Tuesday, February 10th The large grey shapes on the right of the photo are each eight feet wide and twelve feet long. That's some of the lumber that will make up the stage set. We paint the back of everything a neutral grey, partially for lighting reasons, but mostly for flame retardancy. The boards in the pile at the center of the photograph are eight-foot lengths of medium density fiberboard (mdf). We will be treating these boards to look like old wooden siding boards. We're taking a fresh new material and making it look like the siding on a lovely older Southern home. We spend a lot of time in my studio making newly b