Mikado work in Progress

Mikado Stage set Design

The stage is not set up for a performance yet and there are things to be still finished such as the doorway, stage right and the pagoda will have a roof and will be painted. Also, more detail is to be added to the backdrop stage left.

 (The green board is not part of the design, the gap will be filled with a curtain or doorway.)

Designs for the set for Pinafore, Gilbert and Sullivan

Last year, 2012, St. Andrew's Gilbert and Sullivan society presented HMS. Pinafore.
I tried to do something different than the previous time where I represented the wheelhouse of the ship. 

This time I simplified the design somewhat by merely representing the ship by the handrail and a suggestion of rigging.
The banner flags added colour and movement, also referenced the Jubilee year and the Olympics.

The text was chosen from the lyrics of the songs and overpainted as if the words had a dynamic life of their own.

These images are taken of my set plan, which I produce as a painted mock up in card.

They are painted in acrylics. I also use acrylics on the stage painting

Overall, I think the design went well as it created the feeling of wind and movement on board ship.

Gilbert and Sullivan set design

I am involved with the Gilbert and Sullivan society at St Andrews URC, Monkseaton and have been a member of the scene painters team for 10 years or so now. More recently I have been designing the sets as well as painting them.

I haven't taken photos of the final designs in the past so I thought it would be a good idea to record this years design for The Mikado and show the work in progress. 

I have taken a few different sources as inspiration for the design such as Japanese prints and screens.

Using Photoshop, I have roughed out a working plan for the stage set showing a general idea of how I would like it to look. I have copied a modern design for paper screens for the side flats.
This will have to be modified a great deal to fit the newly built properties of the stage set.

There will be a built pagoda and platform in front of the backdrop now so the idea for the waterpool and flowers will need to be changed. The distant pagoda will now be painted onto the backdrop, stage right.

The idea is to be looking out onto the garden from a screened indoor area towards a distant landscape of pagodas and cherry blossom with cascades of blossoms on the stage flats right and left.


Some examples of past designs:


The last time St. Andrews performed The Mikado, it was set in a modern style with the town of Whitley Bay standing in visually for the town of Titipoo. 

(The image shown here is not how the set was designed, the group are putting on a concert of songs and the stage flats were placed over the curtains for this event and they are not seen in the correct order.)

This design is for one of the earliest I was involved with, showing a traditional approach with stone effect and gothic archway.

This is the design for The Grand Duke, for which I used the original set design drawing from 1896 as inspiration.

David Nash at Kew

Over the Easter weekend 2013, I was able to go to Kew Gardens to see the wonderful sculpture of David Nash. I have admired his work for many years as he was a visiting lecturer to Newcastle Polytechnic when I was a student there in the 80's. (Now Northumbria University) 

I love his use of wood and the notion of quarrying the raw material from the trees that offer suggestions for the elemental shapes construct by Nash with chain saws.
He uses the natural movement and splitting of the wood in his work as they release their energy after being cut. The material helps to shape itself.

In the gallery at Kew he shows an amazing mural-sized drawing that shows the family tree of sculptures, the relationships and development of the shapes.

The interior of the gallery is a lovely space to display the smaller works, whereas the monumental sculpture is  positioned in the park. Some of these are surprisingly, bronze, patinated to look like wood and scorched wood.

The natural beauty of the wood speaks for itself. This section through a tree is just an amazing natural object in its own right.

In the glasshouses it is a delight to find the sculptures amongst the foliage, inviting comparison with the sculptural shapes of the plants.

The Nash conservatory houses the most elegantly startling cone constructed from cork barks. The nature of the bark suggests something cast off by a creature like a shell. Each bark is different in its unique way inviting the viewer to observe all of them in their own beauty at the same time as the monumental structure of the whole cone.

These images were taken by myself on my phone, so I own the images but not the copyright of them as they are of Nash's work. So if you do use these images please acknowledge the artist when doing so.