Once I got myself off the computer yesterday was super productive. After a bunch of hemming and hawing I finally got myself working- and had six little concept drawings by dinnertime. I think they might all be usable!

It was such a relief to find myself working things out in a drawing the same way I do with my other work. It's nice to know that my brain solves pictorial problems like what happens at the base of trees while I'm in the middle of a drawing just like deciding something like a big black shape should go right there in a formal drawing- it's the same kind of intuition. Has it really been this long since I've had to draw this way? I'll post about what I actually figured out and reveal the drawings once I feel like they're ready to go.

I'm pretty happy that I figured out how to have trees that move, a magical forest floor, and (hopefully) use shadow puppets!

Here's my sketchbook pages I was using yesterday. My to-do list page- small but functional. The ribbons at the top are these ridiculous ribbons to put on your conference badges they were giving away at NAEA. I learned the next week that Ann Haney and I had both taken dozens.

I started thinking about Roxy Paine's sculptures yesterday. Especially his metal trees and tables of faux mushrooms. I've always liked his work- super sophisticated artificial nature- but just as beautiful. I'm now thinking the set should be like Roxy Paine meets Mary Blair. More on that later.

Here's my palettes from Tuesday, all printed out so I can see them in my studio and a test page of marker colors all labeled. I like the way these pages look together. The labeled markers were shockingly helpful- I don't know them by heart and the color that's printed on them is hardly accurate.

read through with notes

My drawings that I make as art are fairly formal and abstract. The image above boat is about as close as I get to a figure/ground relationship.

Why am I telling you this? Right this minute I'm writing instead of drawing because I'm a little anxious to get started. I've done everything but construct images. Oh sure there are some awesome woods in my head but that blank paper is a little intimidating- and it's not just one set of woods- its several- the woods change- and then there's all these houses that need to move in and out. AND it has to fit with the story- and honestly- I shy away from story and narrative in my work big time. YET I teach classes like Illustration, and Painting, in which that's what I expect my students to do. I'm excited about this challenge but also a little nervous.

Whenever I'm overwhelmed by something. I usually break things down into many steps. In this case I realized I really needed to know each change in the set. So I re-read the script this time armed with my favorite organizational tools- little post-it flags, highlighters, markers and pens. I'm sure those with more experience see this as massive overkill- but it's working for me.

I made a little code for myself- pink for set changes, purple for things I have questions about. Like will Milky White be played by a person or is some kind of prop object that they have to drag around. After all Milky White needs to rise from a grave- much easier if someone can just stand up. I also made a silly list of places and things since making lists makes me feel more on top of what I need to do.

From there I was able to make a list of about a dozen distinctly different sets that I'll want to draw. Most are just the woods in different light- but this is the fun drawing part and I'll get to channel my own secret Mary Blair. This seems an awful lot like storyboarding- which is what John told me I should do first.

Deep breath. Time to start drawing.

color palettes, first round.

Thanks to some tips from Anand and Laila I've finally discovered how awesome COLOURlovers is. It's an online tool that lets you create palettes of 5 colors that you can either choose from an infinite amount of options or better yet....

Users can upload images and it'll pick key colors from those images and you can structure your palette using those as a guide.

WOWEE ZOWEE.

One of my big inspirations for the look of the set is Mary Blair. Mary Blair is an illustrator from the 1950’s, one of the only women working in male dominated world of Disney in the even more sexist pre-Mad Men era. She’s most well known for her concept art for Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Cinderella. She also designed all the wonderful parts of It’s a Small World for the 1964 Worlds Fair, which is now replicated at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA, as well as all Disney parks across the globe. Don’t hold her responsible for that scary song or the creepiness of the animatronic children.

So obviously I needed to spend a chunk of my afternoon running some of my favorite Mary Blair drawings from Alice in Wonderland through the photo part of COLOURlovers. This was a great way to narrow the color palette down fast, and should help communicate what I'm thinking in terms of color easily with Peter and Pam.

getting started

Phew!

After months of gathering inspiration, meetings with Peter, Pam, and especially John, and thinking about the show in my head. I'm finally settling down in my studio to get to work on the set for Into the Woods.

Today is a day of making lists, reading and rereading, and getting my head together. John says I should start by storyboarding the show. Which requires me to do a little rereading. I know the show- having seen it twice- but I don't KNOW the show enough to do that from memory.

Back to the big red binder.