Process Stories: Theater Poster
5 Comments Published February 13th, 2009 in art, illustration, process, sketches, technique
I was asked by friend and colleague Mitchell Thomas at Westmont College if I would create the poster for their next production, a play written by one of our own college students, Diana Small. Muéveme, Muévete (Move Me, Move You) is written in the tradition of Latin-American magical realism, and concerns a young woman and her connection to a peach tree that has served as a kind of protector for her family for ages. I chose to fuse the girl with the tree, in order to hint at the magical aspects of the play, as well as to speak of the dependence between the tree and the family for mutual survival. The play is intended as a gift to the Latino community of Santa Barbara, and as such will have performances in both Spanish and English.
For this image, due to a tight deadline crunch, I was looking for new ways to speed up my usual work process. I decided to print my final sketch (with a wash of midtone color applied via Photoshop) onto Epson Watercolor Paper via my trusty Epson 4000, seal the print with 2 coats of acrylic matte medium, and paint directly on top. This was definitely a significant timesaver, as it allowed me to skip the tortuous process of transferring the sketch down to final board, but it had its drawbacks as well. Despite the matte medium, the surface still absorbed more of the paint than I liked. I managed to get it to work for me, but doubt that I’ll return to that methodology in the future. Which is a regret, because I very much liked the fact that I didn’t have to bother with transferring my sketch, which always loses some of the vitality of the original drawing. So if anyone has any solutions I’m overlooking here, let me know in the comments.
more great work- you are on a roll-DZ
Thanks for sharing this, Scott. I haven’t yet tried avoiding the transfer step through digital means but I think Donato Giancolo does something similar and uses three coats of matte medium and sands it smooth in between each coat.
How are you digitally capturing your work these days?
I’ve been scanning parts of mine and assembling in Photoshop (via photo merge) and for that reason I avoid oil because of the drying time (and glare).
Donato does indeed do something very similar, he’s got a whole section on it on his website. He even goes so far as to mount the sealed paper to masonite. I totally appreciate why he does it—he wants to keep the freshness of that first finished sketch and not lose anything in the transfer. But for me, frankly, I’m just too lazy for all that work—the whole point for me is to minimize the effort of getting from the sketch to the paint, and keeping the freshness of the original sketch is just an extra bonus. Maybe I just need to add one more coat of matte medium to keep the paint from sinking in.
As for digitally capturing my work, I use a photographer here in town who specializes in photographing art, and he’s extremely affordable. When I’ve got the budget, though, I’m now a huge fan of Artscans down in L.A. (see my previous process post on my angel poster piece). The very best quality scans I’ve ever seen.
this turned out really great! nicely done.
scott, you are incredibly gifted. i love seeing your inspiration and processes. westmont is blessed to have you. as was i to learn from you. thanks for what you do. – j.