Scenic painting (theatre)
Theatrical scenic painting includes wide-ranging disciplines, encompassing virtually the entire scope of painting and craft techniques. An experienced scenic painter (or scenic artist) will have skills in landscape painting, figurative painting, trompe-l'œil, and faux finishing, and be versatile in different media such as acrylic, oil, and tempera paint. The painter might also be accomplished in three-dimensional skills such as sculpting, plasterering and gilding.
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The scenic painter takes direction from the theatre designer. In some cases designers paint their own designs.
The techniques and specialized knowledge of the scenic painter replicate an image to a larger scale from a designer's maquette, perhaps with accompanying photographs, printouts and original research, and sometimes with paint and style samples.
Scenic paint
Scenic paint has traditionally been mixed by the painter using pigment powder colour, a binder and a medium. The binder adheres the powder to itself and to the surface on which it is applied. The medium is a thinner which allows the paint to be worked more easily, disappearing as the paint dries. Today it is common to use brands of ready-made scenic paint, or pigment suspended in a medium to which a binder will be added.
References
Further reading
- Crabtree, Susan; Beudert, Peter (2011), Scenic Art for the Theatre, Focal Press, ISBN 0240812905