Community Theater Green Room Discussion Board: yellow brick road for Wizard

Author

Message

Techiemama
Player
Player

Joined: 1/02/07
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 0

Posted: 1/23/07 at 2:45am

Masonite is basically pegboard without the holes. :)

IP Logged

Gaafa
Celebrity

Joined: 3/21/04
Location: Australia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1181

Posted: 1/24/07 at 9:24pm

Here is an idea for the yellow brick road:

http://beehive.courier.co.uk/default.asp?WCI=SiteHome&ID=2512&PageID=71783

from the Amdram site:- http://www.amdram.co.uk/forums/index.php?

Joe
Western Gondawandaland
turn right @ Perth.
Hear the light & see the sound.
Toi Toi Toi Chookas {{"chook [chicken] it is"}
May you always play
to a full house}

IP Logged

kmdded
Player
Player

Joined: 1/18/07
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 28

Posted: 2/08/07 at 12:31pm

Okay, I am going with the Masonite. Now, honestly this is my first time doing any "set construction" on my own. For colors of the yellow brick road I am thinking of a yellow base with some burnt sienna brown lightly painted over it and then do brown lines to form like irregular bricks more like stone...then spray it with a sparkle spray. I also want to use the idea about coke wash to keep it from being slick.

Okay, you artrists out there. Thoughts? I am open to suggestions. Stern%20Smile

IP Logged

Techiemama
Player
Player

Joined: 1/02/07
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 0

Posted: 2/08/07 at 1:23pm

Hi,

We spent hours and hours trying to come up with a yellow brick road. When it was all said and done, we revealed the front of the stage as the road, but as it all turned out, it was only visible from the first couple rows. If you are laying the road directly on the stage, it is a good idea to look at it from all over the house to see where it can be seen from, otherwise your hard work and effect may be totally lost. We had other neat things about that show, but the road never was what we wanted it to be.

Good luck and have a great show!

IP Logged

kmdded
Player
Player

Joined: 1/18/07
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 28

Posted: 2/08/07 at 1:35pm

Hmm. Good point. We are going to have the road on the stage and coming down the steps in front and out the side door so maybe the steps will be helpful. Thanks for the heads up.

IP Logged

theaterhelper
Walk-On
Walk-On

Joined: 2/08/07
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 0

Posted: 2/09/07 at 4:24pm

Not quite sparks, but if you cut up mylar (paper with a shiny tin-foil kind of surface, but softer and more sturdy) into small pieces and put it in a balloon then inflate it and then let go or pop it, under stage light you get a sparky kind of effect with absolutly no danger factor.

Also, I'd suggest masonite above luaun, because luaun could give both actors and people handling it splinters. Luaun is also more likely to warp after being painted on one side without any framing attached. Masonite is what we'd use in professional theater. Masonite is a smooth surface, but if you don't use glossy paint it isn't that slippery. It's usually much cheaper if you go to a real lumber yard and not Home Depot... and prices vary regionally.

I would be concerned about use of a "ground cloth," both because it is likely to wrinkle and trip actors.

Perhaps, if you haven't bought anything yet your best and safest option would be to use yellow carpet with the cracks between the bricks stencil painted on and the overall shape cut to the shape of your road.

However, since you say you're going with maso, to paint:

1. Texture always looks better on stage than flat color. Yellow is not as opaque as other colors. I would get 2 or 3 shades of yellow/ gold/ orange and a spongy roller cover and roller (looks like a sea sponge attached to a roller), pour the colors into 3 pans, and then use the sponge in all three colors. Dip and roll the first color until you're running low on paint on the sponge, and then dip into the second and work it over the same area a little, and then the same with the third and then move along on the surface. If you work it too much it will all blend into one muddy, flat color, but if you achieve the right balance it will be a stunning texture under light.

2. Lay out your bricks on the dry surface. Charcoal is a great layout material, because you can remove it with a damp (or even a dry) cloth if you make a mistake. Make sure you keep your lines straight or it will be very obvious in your final product. The "horizontals" on your bricks should all line up, but the "verticals" should be staggered. Staggering 1/3 of a brick from row to row tends to work best.

3. To achieve the cracks, if you use black and just do lines it will look very cartoony. If you are looking for closer to realism, you will want to paint highlight and shadows. Get a thin brush. Water down your paint a little and it will be easier to keep your lines clean, and it will also allow your paint to not look pasty on the surface and the cracks will look more natural. Use a dark brown, almost black but not quite, for the cracks. Sometimes break the crack line or vary the widths slightly but gradually and organically. If you're working on a very big stage, your cracks want to be 1/2-3/4 of an inch wide. In a very intimate space, sometimes you don't need to paint at all because a sharpee or other permanent marker can achieve the right width. If you're really nervous about painting straght lines, they make a marker called the "Magnum 44" that will make a line 1/2" wide, and it does come in a variety of colors including brown, but you might need to order that over the internet. If you use the marker, it is especially important to break your lines, fading down to thinner width by tilting the marker to fade out and in.

4. When you've finished the shadows, it's time to highlight. Take a very watery white, or a less watery cream and either a Q-Tip or a small brush. Pick a "direction" that the light is coming from. The yellow edges closest to that direction against the shadows want to be highlighted. Again, use a broken line... not a dotted line, but not solid either. The widest your highlights want to be for a large space is probably 3/8 of an inch.

5. If any of the shadow edges need cleaning up at the end, a sharpee can be used.

6. There are a few options for your sparkle. You could insert a sparkly spatter before you make the cracks, or do it now at the end. OR, you could mix mica powder into a seal coat. If your show practices a lot on the road, or runs for a lot of nights, you want to seal your paint job with a clear coat, like a clear poly, or clear acrylic. Use latex based paint and clearcoat (Latex, acrylic, or water-based poly) so it drys fast and you can clean up easily. DO NOT USE A FAN ON A CLEAR COAT. Clear coats go on kind of white in color, but then dry clear. The top layer can dry so fast with a fan that it seals moisture underneath, which never dries and stays cloudy forever, ruining your paint job.

For the sparkle, I suggest not using glitter... it's messy and falls off. Mica powders mix well into clear coats, and will last forever. You can control how sparkley you get by how much you add. You'll probably have to buy WAY more than you need. Another option is to mix some into a clearcoat, water the clearcoat down a bit and spatter it. (Or get a metallic paint or glaze, water it down and spatter it.) Rosebrand is a great company to get this from... but Home Depot will carry the glazes.

To spatter, water your paint down to the consistantsy of skim milk. Take a larger brush and dip it in. Tap the flat, hard part of the brush against your hand (not the narrow side), about three feet above the surface you are painting and keep it moving around over the surface so you don't get blobby. (Always do a test tap off to the side after every dip, until you know how to feel if there's too much in the brush. The first tap can be very blobby if you have too much paint.) The goal is to get lots of little raindrops on the surface. Take breaks to let it dry, because if you do too much too fast it will all bleed together

Another option is to water your paint down and put it in a garden sprayer (the kind you'd use for pesticides) and play with the tip to adjust the spray until you get a fine rain. Again, keep it moving and don't get too wet and heavy too fast to prevent bleeding. If the sprayer spits a lot, you probably didn't water down your paint a lot. After a spatter, you definitley want to seal it, as watered down paint will wear off more quickly.

Hope that helps.

Laura

Shed some light on the dark side of theatre at theaterhelper.com.

IP Logged

Gaafa
Celebrity

Joined: 3/21/04
Location: Australia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1181

Posted: 2/10/07 at 1:42am

Me thinks from your posts from your posts your more than a ‘theatrehelper’?
I prefer hardboard [aka Masonite, Burney board & other propriety brand names] Unlike chipboard or MDF which are made of compressed hydroscopic fibres & absorb moisture in the air, unless complete sealed. Especially unsealed chipboard which becomes pregnant overnight & self destructs when dried out, wouldn’t be great if it produced chipboard off spring!
MDF is reacts in a similar away except it expands dramatically & contracts in a similar fashion, giving the impression it has grown legs & started walking.
[Like the expansion/contraction of hemp & fibre fly hauling lines]
Also masonite with it’s rough textured backing, offers resistance to walking & movement on the deck.
Unfortunately like most particle pressed board, as previously mentioned, strip layers will come away & flake over time. But for complete stage covering use it is ideal. Without lumps & bumps, no mater what the atmospheric conditions.
I love to use cheap plastic garden pressurised spray bottles, with the plunger pump pressurised. They are small & handy for oodles of stage & scenic applications. From wetting down drop cloths & getting wrinkles out or using as paint sprayer with an adjustable spray delivery type selection nossle.
Also you can afford to have a number of them set up & stored with different colour paints, for quick touch ups during the season. Being air tight, a quick shake & pump up - your in business, with no messy cleaning up of the gear. Just ensure the nossle is kept clean & you have a little test on some waste material first.
Bewdy Laura g’donya!

Joe
Western Gondawandaland
turn right @ Perth.
Hear the light & see the sound.
Toi Toi Toi Chookas {{"chook [chicken] it is"}
May you always play
to a full house}

IP Logged

theaterhelper
Walk-On
Walk-On

Joined: 2/08/07
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 0

Posted: 2/12/07 at 1:54pm

You have a good point... the masonite with one rough side will be less likely to slip. In this area, you would be looking specifically for "single tempered masonite" for that particular product. The other kind with two smooth sides is "double tempered," and I tend to have an easier time finding the double tempered in stock here, but perhaps that varies by location.

You don't usually want to mix the two, as single tempered runs just a touch thicker even though the measurment they call it is the same... and it's just enough of a difference for things that are being dragged rolled to catch on and hurt your edges.

Also, if you do go with masonite, instruct the people handling it to be careful about setting it down on corners, or your corners will quickly become very yucky. It also is best keep it in some sort of vertical or on-edge fashion when you carry it around, because if you let it bounce around and flex too much, that is when it is most likely to break.

Laura

(Oh, and is it wrong to be more than a 'theaterhelper' in this forum? I do love theater in all forms!)

Laura

Shed some light on the dark side of theatre at theaterhelper.com.

IP Logged

Karin
Lead
Lead

Joined: 12/27/06
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 47

Posted: 2/12/07 at 4:53pm

We did a wonderful production of the Wizard of Oz. For the yellow brick road we purchased 15 yards of bright yellow plastic sheeting.... the kind that is purchased by the yard for plastic tablecloths. The fabric was stiff and was cut to the desired shape we wanted. I don't know where you are from but we have a discount store in our area... Building 19 and it can be purchased for a dollar a yard. I understand Walmart also carries it.

Good luck!

IP Logged

kmdded
Player
Player

Joined: 1/18/07
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 28

Posted: 2/15/07 at 10:45am

did you buy this from the fabric section of the store or outdoors?

IP Logged

Set Design and Construction
Community Theater Green Room Discussion Board :Producing Theater :Set Design and Construction

Topic: yellow brick road for Wizard( Topic Closed)
	<< Prev Page of 3 Next >>

Author	Message
Techiemama Player Joined: 1/02/07 Online Status: Offline Posts: 0	Posted: 1/23/07 at 2:45am
	Masonite is basically pegboard without the holes. :)
	IP Logged

Gaafa Celebrity Joined: 3/21/04 Location: Australia Online Status: Offline Posts: 1181	Posted: 1/24/07 at 9:24pm
	Here is an idea for the yellow brick road: http://beehive.courier.co.uk/default.asp?WCI=SiteHome&ID=2512&PageID=71783 from the Amdram site:- http://www.amdram.co.uk/forums/index.php?
	Joe Western Gondawandaland turn right @ Perth. Hear the light & see the sound. Toi Toi Toi Chookas {{"chook [chicken] it is"} May you always play to a full house}
	IP Logged

kmdded Player Joined: 1/18/07 Online Status: Offline Posts: 28	Posted: 2/08/07 at 12:31pm
	Okay, I am going with the Masonite. Now, honestly this is my first time doing any "set construction" on my own. For colors of the yellow brick road I am thinking of a yellow base with some burnt sienna brown lightly painted over it and then do brown lines to form like irregular bricks more like stone...then spray it with a sparkle spray. I also want to use the idea about coke wash to keep it from being slick. Okay, you artrists out there. Thoughts? I am open to suggestions.
	IP Logged

Techiemama Player Joined: 1/02/07 Online Status: Offline Posts: 0	Posted: 2/08/07 at 1:23pm
	Hi, We spent hours and hours trying to come up with a yellow brick road. When it was all said and done, we revealed the front of the stage as the road, but as it all turned out, it was only visible from the first couple rows. If you are laying the road directly on the stage, it is a good idea to look at it from all over the house to see where it can be seen from, otherwise your hard work and effect may be totally lost. We had other neat things about that show, but the road never was what we wanted it to be. Good luck and have a great show!
	IP Logged

kmdded Player Joined: 1/18/07 Online Status: Offline Posts: 28	Posted: 2/08/07 at 1:35pm
	Hmm. Good point. We are going to have the road on the stage and coming down the steps in front and out the side door so maybe the steps will be helpful. Thanks for the heads up.
	IP Logged

theaterhelper Walk-On Joined: 2/08/07 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 0	Posted: 2/09/07 at 4:24pm
	Not quite sparks, but if you cut up mylar (paper with a shiny tin-foil kind of surface, but softer and more sturdy) into small pieces and put it in a balloon then inflate it and then let go or pop it, under stage light you get a sparky kind of effect with absolutly no danger factor. Also, I'd suggest masonite above luaun, because luaun could give both actors and people handling it splinters. Luaun is also more likely to warp after being painted on one side without any framing attached. Masonite is what we'd use in professional theater. Masonite is a smooth surface, but if you don't use glossy paint it isn't that slippery. It's usually much cheaper if you go to a real lumber yard and not Home Depot... and prices vary regionally. I would be concerned about use of a "ground cloth," both because it is likely to wrinkle and trip actors. Perhaps, if you haven't bought anything yet your best and safest option would be to use yellow carpet with the cracks between the bricks stencil painted on and the overall shape cut to the shape of your road. However, since you say you're going with maso, to paint: 1. Texture always looks better on stage than flat color. Yellow is not as opaque as other colors. I would get 2 or 3 shades of yellow/ gold/ orange and a spongy roller cover and roller (looks like a sea sponge attached to a roller), pour the colors into 3 pans, and then use the sponge in all three colors. Dip and roll the first color until you're running low on paint on the sponge, and then dip into the second and work it over the same area a little, and then the same with the third and then move along on the surface. If you work it too much it will all blend into one muddy, flat color, but if you achieve the right balance it will be a stunning texture under light. 2. Lay out your bricks on the dry surface. Charcoal is a great layout material, because you can remove it with a damp (or even a dry) cloth if you make a mistake. Make sure you keep your lines straight or it will be very obvious in your final product. The "horizontals" on your bricks should all line up, but the "verticals" should be staggered. Staggering 1/3 of a brick from row to row tends to work best. 3. To achieve the cracks, if you use black and just do lines it will look very cartoony. If you are looking for closer to realism, you will want to paint highlight and shadows. Get a thin brush. Water down your paint a little and it will be easier to keep your lines clean, and it will also allow your paint to not look pasty on the surface and the cracks will look more natural. Use a dark brown, almost black but not quite, for the cracks. Sometimes break the crack line or vary the widths slightly but gradually and organically. If you're working on a very big stage, your cracks want to be 1/2-3/4 of an inch wide. In a very intimate space, sometimes you don't need to paint at all because a sharpee or other permanent marker can achieve the right width. If you're really nervous about painting straght lines, they make a marker called the "Magnum 44" that will make a line 1/2" wide, and it does come in a variety of colors including brown, but you might need to order that over the internet. If you use the marker, it is especially important to break your lines, fading down to thinner width by tilting the marker to fade out and in. 4. When you've finished the shadows, it's time to highlight. Take a very watery white, or a less watery cream and either a Q-Tip or a small brush. Pick a "direction" that the light is coming from. The yellow edges closest to that direction against the shadows want to be highlighted. Again, use a broken line... not a dotted line, but not solid either. The widest your highlights want to be for a large space is probably 3/8 of an inch. 5. If any of the shadow edges need cleaning up at the end, a sharpee can be used. 6. There are a few options for your sparkle. You could insert a sparkly spatter before you make the cracks, or do it now at the end. OR, you could mix mica powder into a seal coat. If your show practices a lot on the road, or runs for a lot of nights, you want to seal your paint job with a clear coat, like a clear poly, or clear acrylic. Use latex based paint and clearcoat (Latex, acrylic, or water-based poly) so it drys fast and you can clean up easily. DO NOT USE A FAN ON A CLEAR COAT. Clear coats go on kind of white in color, but then dry clear. The top layer can dry so fast with a fan that it seals moisture underneath, which never dries and stays cloudy forever, ruining your paint job. For the sparkle, I suggest not using glitter... it's messy and falls off. Mica powders mix well into clear coats, and will last forever. You can control how sparkley you get by how much you add. You'll probably have to buy WAY more than you need. Another option is to mix some into a clearcoat, water the clearcoat down a bit and spatter it. (Or get a metallic paint or glaze, water it down and spatter it.) Rosebrand is a great company to get this from... but Home Depot will carry the glazes. To spatter, water your paint down to the consistantsy of skim milk. Take a larger brush and dip it in. Tap the flat, hard part of the brush against your hand (not the narrow side), about three feet above the surface you are painting and keep it moving around over the surface so you don't get blobby. (Always do a test tap off to the side after every dip, until you know how to feel if there's too much in the brush. The first tap can be very blobby if you have too much paint.) The goal is to get lots of little raindrops on the surface. Take breaks to let it dry, because if you do too much too fast it will all bleed together Another option is to water your paint down and put it in a garden sprayer (the kind you'd use for pesticides) and play with the tip to adjust the spray until you get a fine rain. Again, keep it moving and don't get too wet and heavy too fast to prevent bleeding. If the sprayer spits a lot, you probably didn't water down your paint a lot. After a spatter, you definitley want to seal it, as watered down paint will wear off more quickly. Hope that helps. Laura
	Shed some light on the dark side of theatre at theaterhelper.com.
	IP Logged

Gaafa Celebrity Joined: 3/21/04 Location: Australia Online Status: Offline Posts: 1181	Posted: 2/10/07 at 1:42am
	Me thinks from your posts from your posts your more than a ‘theatrehelper’? I prefer hardboard [aka Masonite, Burney board & other propriety brand names] Unlike chipboard or MDF which are made of compressed hydroscopic fibres & absorb moisture in the air, unless complete sealed. Especially unsealed chipboard which becomes pregnant overnight & self destructs when dried out, wouldn’t be great if it produced chipboard off spring! MDF is reacts in a similar away except it expands dramatically & contracts in a similar fashion, giving the impression it has grown legs & started walking. [Like the expansion/contraction of hemp & fibre fly hauling lines] Also masonite with it’s rough textured backing, offers resistance to walking & movement on the deck. Unfortunately like most particle pressed board, as previously mentioned, strip layers will come away & flake over time. But for complete stage covering use it is ideal. Without lumps & bumps, no mater what the atmospheric conditions. I love to use cheap plastic garden pressurised spray bottles, with the plunger pump pressurised. They are small & handy for oodles of stage & scenic applications. From wetting down drop cloths & getting wrinkles out or using as paint sprayer with an adjustable spray delivery type selection nossle. Also you can afford to have a number of them set up & stored with different colour paints, for quick touch ups during the season. Being air tight, a quick shake & pump up - your in business, with no messy cleaning up of the gear. Just ensure the nossle is kept clean & you have a little test on some waste material first. Bewdy Laura g’donya!
	Joe Western Gondawandaland turn right @ Perth. Hear the light & see the sound. Toi Toi Toi Chookas {{"chook [chicken] it is"} May you always play to a full house}
	IP Logged

theaterhelper Walk-On Joined: 2/08/07 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 0	Posted: 2/12/07 at 1:54pm
	You have a good point... the masonite with one rough side will be less likely to slip. In this area, you would be looking specifically for "single tempered masonite" for that particular product. The other kind with two smooth sides is "double tempered," and I tend to have an easier time finding the double tempered in stock here, but perhaps that varies by location. You don't usually want to mix the two, as single tempered runs just a touch thicker even though the measurment they call it is the same... and it's just enough of a difference for things that are being dragged rolled to catch on and hurt your edges. Also, if you do go with masonite, instruct the people handling it to be careful about setting it down on corners, or your corners will quickly become very yucky. It also is best keep it in some sort of vertical or on-edge fashion when you carry it around, because if you let it bounce around and flex too much, that is when it is most likely to break. Laura (Oh, and is it wrong to be more than a 'theaterhelper' in this forum? I do love theater in all forms!) Laura
	Shed some light on the dark side of theatre at theaterhelper.com.
	IP Logged

Karin Lead Joined: 12/27/06 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 47	Posted: 2/12/07 at 4:53pm
	We did a wonderful production of the Wizard of Oz. For the yellow brick road we purchased 15 yards of bright yellow plastic sheeting.... the kind that is purchased by the yard for plastic tablecloths. The fabric was stiff and was cut to the desired shape we wanted. I don't know where you are from but we have a discount store in our area... Building 19 and it can be purchased for a dollar a yard. I understand Walmart also carries it. Good luck!
	IP Logged

kmdded Player Joined: 1/18/07 Online Status: Offline Posts: 28	Posted: 2/15/07 at 10:45am
	did you buy this from the fabric section of the store or outdoors?
	IP Logged