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labricoleuseTonight is the first preview performance of our first mainstage show, Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. I'm super excited about the design of this show, and can't wait for the pictures to come back from photo call so i can do a more comprehensive overview post on all the fun craftwork (like this one on last season's closer The Illusion).
However, i've gotten permission to post some process shots on how my team generated the custom-painted china silk yardage used on one of the costumes.
Base-color dyeing in the 20-gal vat.
Above, i'm dyeing the china silk yardage a buttery base color--the pattern i needed to generate is tiled abstract checkerboard squares in butter/chocolate contrast. Since the chocolate color will easily dye over the lighter value butter color, i dyed the whole length of fabric to the butter shade first.
The finished fabric needed to be 90" long (2.5 yards), so i dyed a 5-yard length just in case something horrible happened and a second piece needed to be made. 5 yards of china silk isn't that much bulk, so i did the dye process in the smaller of our two industrial dye vats. You can see the larger one (60 gal capacity) there in the background. Note that i am wearing long insulated gloves and splash-proof goggles. This is because dye baths can be scalding hot and sometimes contain chemicals you don't want to absorb through skin contact.
The costume designer, Olivera Gajik, and i worked out exactly how the general layout of the checkerboard was to be arranged on a rough diagram of the pattern piece. She wanted the result to be reminiscent of optical-illusion/psychedelic imbalanced check patterns. Here's the "road map" i had to work from, which i scaled up to the required dimensions:
rough diagram
I went with a resist process to create this effect, which essentially means that you apply a "dye-blocker" medium to all the parts of the fabric that you don't want to paint or dye, then apply the color. The resist is then removed and the pattern remains. Some resists are solvent-based and need to be dry-cleaned out, but i used a water-based product called Presist, which looks like of like pasty honey, dries fairly hard and crunchy, and washes out with soap and water.
Crafts Assistant Miranda Morales and I apply the resist.
We laid the fabric out on our dye shop table (which is actually a stainless steel dissection tabletop mounted on traditional table legs) and applied the resist using standard 1" paintbrushes. Because of the steel tabletop, we could peel the dry resisted fabric right off it when we were finished.
Now it's time to apply the darker color!
Applying the flowable silk paint.
Here we've got the resisted fabric attached to our pulley-operated yardage hoist (a glorified clothesline, essentially). Gravity and capillary action help speed up the application process--i used a custom blended color, made from different shades of Dye-Na-Flow brand flowable silk paint. You can slap the paint on there and it will spread to cover the non-resisted areas, and if some dribbles onto a resisted area, it won't attach to the fibers (provided, of course, that you have applied the resist completely!).
Costume lab assistant Emily Wood Bowron heat-sets the design.
Students in UNC's undergraduate introductory costume construction course are required to work lab-hours in the PRC costume shop as part of their study. Often, they do hands-on work with PlayMakers mainstage costume production such as this project. The Dye-Na-Flow silk paints need to be heat-set, which helps the color bond to the fabric so it won't wash out or fade when cleaned. Here you can see Drama 192 student Ms. Bowron using an industrial steam iron and a press-cloth to heat-set the pattern (the press-cloth keeps the fabric from being scorched in the heat-setting process).
And, i hate to leave you with a "To Be Continued..." but i'll include a photograph of the finished yardage on stage in costume form once the photo call images come back from the photographer!
However, i've gotten permission to post some process shots on how my team generated the custom-painted china silk yardage used on one of the costumes.
Base-color dyeing in the 20-gal vat.
Above, i'm dyeing the china silk yardage a buttery base color--the pattern i needed to generate is tiled abstract checkerboard squares in butter/chocolate contrast. Since the chocolate color will easily dye over the lighter value butter color, i dyed the whole length of fabric to the butter shade first.
The finished fabric needed to be 90" long (2.5 yards), so i dyed a 5-yard length just in case something horrible happened and a second piece needed to be made. 5 yards of china silk isn't that much bulk, so i did the dye process in the smaller of our two industrial dye vats. You can see the larger one (60 gal capacity) there in the background. Note that i am wearing long insulated gloves and splash-proof goggles. This is because dye baths can be scalding hot and sometimes contain chemicals you don't want to absorb through skin contact.
The costume designer, Olivera Gajik, and i worked out exactly how the general layout of the checkerboard was to be arranged on a rough diagram of the pattern piece. She wanted the result to be reminiscent of optical-illusion/psychedelic imbalanced check patterns. Here's the "road map" i had to work from, which i scaled up to the required dimensions:
rough diagram
I went with a resist process to create this effect, which essentially means that you apply a "dye-blocker" medium to all the parts of the fabric that you don't want to paint or dye, then apply the color. The resist is then removed and the pattern remains. Some resists are solvent-based and need to be dry-cleaned out, but i used a water-based product called Presist, which looks like of like pasty honey, dries fairly hard and crunchy, and washes out with soap and water.
Crafts Assistant Miranda Morales and I apply the resist.
We laid the fabric out on our dye shop table (which is actually a stainless steel dissection tabletop mounted on traditional table legs) and applied the resist using standard 1" paintbrushes. Because of the steel tabletop, we could peel the dry resisted fabric right off it when we were finished.
Now it's time to apply the darker color!
Applying the flowable silk paint.
Here we've got the resisted fabric attached to our pulley-operated yardage hoist (a glorified clothesline, essentially). Gravity and capillary action help speed up the application process--i used a custom blended color, made from different shades of Dye-Na-Flow brand flowable silk paint. You can slap the paint on there and it will spread to cover the non-resisted areas, and if some dribbles onto a resisted area, it won't attach to the fibers (provided, of course, that you have applied the resist completely!).
Costume lab assistant Emily Wood Bowron heat-sets the design.
Students in UNC's undergraduate introductory costume construction course are required to work lab-hours in the PRC costume shop as part of their study. Often, they do hands-on work with PlayMakers mainstage costume production such as this project. The Dye-Na-Flow silk paints need to be heat-set, which helps the color bond to the fabric so it won't wash out or fade when cleaned. Here you can see Drama 192 student Ms. Bowron using an industrial steam iron and a press-cloth to heat-set the pattern (the press-cloth keeps the fabric from being scorched in the heat-setting process).
And, i hate to leave you with a "To Be Continued..." but i'll include a photograph of the finished yardage on stage in costume form once the photo call images come back from the photographer!
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-26 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-27 03:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-27 07:38 pm (UTC)pictures of romeo and juliet
Date: 2008-01-28 08:59 am (UTC)Re: pictures of romeo and juliet
Date: 2008-01-28 12:20 pm (UTC)Please email me at < costume dot unc dot edu > and let me know what pictures you'd like to use, so i can provide you with higher-resolution copies than the ones i use online.
I'd love to hear more about this conference as well. It sounds exciting!
romeo and juliet
Date: 2008-01-30 06:25 pm (UTC)Re: romeo and juliet
Date: 2008-01-30 06:29 pm (UTC)Some of the images of the final costumes are in these other posts:
http://labricoleuse.livejournal.com/39129.html
http://labricoleuse.livejournal.com/39840.html
Thanks for the inquiry!