What you will need for this project
Background: When I worked at UAF we were blessed years ago with a donation of a box of old white 50’s tuxedos, and were annoyed when a coolant leak in costume storage stained them all with beige splotches. It proved a blessing in disguise, since it made it “OK” for us to paint and dye them. See all the pictures below, and then do this:
Continue reading Costume Class Project: Suit Conversions With PaintThe “Lecture” (please read):
One of the first points that should be made about costuming is that it is part of a social organism. The organism may be part of a University theatre program, or part of a film production company, community theatre, Renaissance Faire producing group, television series producing studio, or professional repertory theatre, etc. However in all cases, costuming exists as a piece of a much bigger pie, in which costume is not the center, but a support to a larger whole. This is the key to understanding what we do. We exist as one of the heads of a multi-headed beast trying to create ‘ art.’ If we don’t talk or get along with the other heads, if we try to pull in the opposite direction from that which the rest of the beast is going, we trip over our own feet, and go nowhere at all.
Therefore, lesson number one: everyone must talk to each other, get to understand how one’s cohorts think, trade ideas, make suggestions, and then, when all the heads find a consensus on which way to go, go, go, go…..GO with commitment in the direction chosen, even if it means going over a cliff in one’s individual opinion.
This is very hard to do.
Continue reading Costume Class Project: Designing in CooperationColor is such a useful trick for establishing character and group identity in plays that often designers forget that pattern, texture and especially silhouette can also be more effective design tools. One of the best exercises one can do to force oneself to rely more on these tools, so as not to get rusty, is to design a show periodically that is either monochromatic (uses only one color) or de-saturated (uses only gradients of black and white). It is the latter that you will do here.
To see an example of a show done in this manner see my designs for a low-budget student production of The Seagull done in Russia some years ago.
The Project:
10 characters from a Shakespeare Play that you will render using only black and/or white or gradients of the same. Using silhouette, line, and other means still left to you, delineate the characters and their relationships with one another. You may set the play in any era before 1916, in any culture, or you may costume them totally abstractly, but do not set it any time in the last 100 years of Western civilization’s clothes, or you will get unduly distracted by your modern mental associations with certain garments.
Continue reading Costume Class Project: No Color Designs6 Renderings for “Patience” Project
Step 1: Using the data you found in the Historical Research Project incorporate your research into colored designs for 6 of the characters in Gilbert & Sullivan’s Patience
You need not follow the research slavishly, but the evidence of your sources should be apparent in your drawings. Then label your drawings something like this:
If you have difficulty drawing figures, you can print out some of the outline sheets below, and do your renderings on these sheets. Printing the sheet onto card stock will allow you to use watercolors without having the paper wrinkle
Another way of Making rendering easier is to make a “Dancing Man”:
Make this out of heavy card stock, connect the pieces with brads as shown in the center, and lay it on your paper to make different poses for your body-outlines.
Scan and post the images you drew to your files section and post a notification on the message board that you have done renderings for this play and would appreciate feedback from the other students.
Using the data you found in the Historical Research Project incorporate your research into designs for the three characters in Anton Chekhov’s one act farce The Marriage Proposal. You need not follow the research slavishly, but the evidence of your sources should be apparent in your drawings. Then label your drawings something like this:
If you have difficulty drawing figures, you can print out some of the outline sheets below, and do your renderings on these sheets. Printing the sheet onto card stock will allow you to use watercolors without having the paper wrinkle
Another way of Making rendering easier is to make a “Dancing Man”:
Make this out of heavy card stock, connect the pieces with brads as shown in the center, and lay it on your paper to make different poses for your body-outlines.
Whenever you have spare time this semester, teach yourself more about rendering by going to this links page for more lessons.
Scan and post the images you drew to your files section and post a notification on the message board that you have done renderings for this play and would appreciate feedback from the other students.
Theatrical costume design is primarily (although not exclusively) concerned with supporting the actor in his/her interpretation of character.
Step 1: Read the monologue play On the Harm of Tobacco (aka “Smoking is Bad for You”) by Anton Chekhov and ask yourself the following actor-type questions about the man who makes this speech:
If this man were a car, what kind of car would he be?
If this man was an animal, which would he be?
What do you think he has in his pockets?
If he were a woman in the present time (!), how would she dress?
If he could choose to kill himself, or kill his wife, which would he do?
Continue reading Costume Class Project: Focusing on the Actor – Rendering for “On The Harm of Tobacco”Questions you should ask yourself after reading the play script:
What is this play about in literal terms?
What is this play about in general or metaphorical terms (see Dramatic Metaphor and Concept below)?
What is the style of the play?
Many costume students are drawn to the field by an enthusiasm for one or more historical periods of dress. This project allows you to research an era, or ideally a small easy to handle segment of it, such as an object like a codpiece or a flag fan, or a particular type of garment, and make a new web page devoted to it. To do this well, and legally, you will need to find visual representations of your era or object that are copyright expired, make ones you create yourself, or which date before the concept of copyright existed. Before uploading images please refer to Wikimedia Copyright Rules to determine what is OK to post.
You also will wish to research your topic two ways. You will wish to consult both secondary sources and primary sources. In the case of costume history, examples of a primary source would include:
Continue reading Costume Class Project: Primary and Secondary Research on an Historical Costume Topic
