Things I have been working on.....

Utah Shakespeare Festival: COMEDY OF ERRORS : Designer - Viki Smith


   This tufted heart shaped chair needed to be reupholstered in a red velour redoing the deep button tufting of seat and back.

 Once I started removing the fabric I discovered that there was no seat bottom or webbing.The original foam was also dried out and crumbling into powder.
  

I constructed a whole new seat with plywood, 1" foam and cotton batting.  

Tufting holes were marked out on the plywood seat and drilled before spray adhering down foam cut to size.   The seat back and cotton fill was in good enough condition to reuse.

Starting the tufting from center

Working down to the heart point.

Triming stage.

 Since I built a new seat, I could tuft it while it was not attached to the frame.  I had to make sure that there was enough fabric on it's sides to be able to complete the upholstery job.

Size #22 buttons I made for the tufting can be seen on the pin caddy. I used a popsical stick during this process to help set the tuft fabric overlaps.

Front channels were cut in the foam on front and back to replicate the original look.

Batting also added along edges to give rounded softer look under the fabric.

Working the fabric into wanted shapes and locations.

Back view process shot.

Bottom and back view before coverings added.

Finished chair with red gimp.

Finished chair ready to go to rehearsal.

Changing Times...

This blog started as a school project to follow along my internship.  I have now graduated.  :-)!

I've decided to change this up a bit to have a spot out there of projects I am currently working on.

I arrived at my post graduation job as a Senior Props artisan for Utah Shakespeare Festival in a Blizzard.  May 10, 2014.  Let the games begin.

Vacuum forming.

Today I got trained by Eric on how to use the Rep's vacuum form machine!
He showed me how to do it and helped through the steps for the first 2 sheets.  Then I did 8 more over the course of the day, getting quite comfortable with the process.

 You can use many kinds of thermo plastics in vacuum forming.  For this project we used clear 3mm PETG.  http://www.lairdplastics.com/product/materials/petg
There are thicker and colored plastics.  Eric chose 3mm to get the finer detail. 

 These components are being combined and painted to make wall sconces for End Of The Rainbow.

Clamping down the sheet of plastic to the frame which will be raised in the air and heated by the oven in the top of the unit.

The vacuum forming unit.  On top is the oven. Below is the vacuum tank connected up to the perforated table.  These are the 4 elements being formed.  Sheet of plastic is raised in the air being heated.  Takes about 2 minuets from start of heating to lowering it down and vacuuming the shapes.

4 shapes to be made.  Important to note, you can't have any undercuts on shapes or it will get sealed in.

hot plastic lowered and objects sealed in.

The plastic sets very fast 4-6 seconds.  here is the sheet removed to a table with the shapes still in. Shapes are trimmed out with tin snips

rough cut out of shapes

close up.  The forms were made up of MDF that had been cut with a cut away machine and polyurethaned heavily to withstand being used multiple times and keep the intricate detail.

The shapes then had a blank that connected underneath.  These blanks were exactly the same as the topping shape.  This was important since i needed to router around all the forms to evenly trim the plastic.  At the router table a special router bit was used that was inset by an 8th of and inch.  This left a better looking, and less brittle, edge to the pieces.  When routering I had to be careful.  The plastic wanted to crack up edges. The cracking effect is one reason we made 10 sets for the needed 8 sconces.

Trimmed and removed pieces. Ready to be taken to paint.

This particular plastic is food safe and completely recyclable.

Other Forever Plaid

Here are some more projects that I worked on for Forever Plaid.

Fake cigarette.

  This cigarette needed to be pulled out and handled a little bit, but is never lit.  The actor pulls one out and walks off stage.  I looked in stock and there weren't any that were the right size and would hold up to an 8 week run.  So I made one.

There was a Marlboro lights pack with a broken cigarette.  I used the broken one as reference for paint and lettering.
some supplies used include, dowel, acrylic paint, paintbrushes, utility knife, foam, pack of cigarettes, hot glue

I stuffed the cigarette pack with 2 pieces of foam and then relined with the silver wrapper. I used 2 foam pieces so there would be a slot for the fake cigarette to be pulled from and reinserted easily.  Above you can see the cut dowel pre-paint next to the broken reference cigarette

Real cigarette on left.  Painted one on right.  I cut a piece of dowel to the correct length.  Using white and some burnt umber to paint it.  I penciled on the lines and Marlboro name and then fine brush painted them on with a paint mixed of gold and bronze.

The tobacco end I painted also with burnt umber and dark brown with a little white mixed in.  I had loose tobacco from the broken cigarette as reference.

Fake cigarette inserted in the pack

Newspaper clippings These are handled by the actors.  Katie printed of the few articles needed onto newspaper print.  We cut them out and scrap-booked them onto paper using rubber cement and adding tape accents.

Lyrics from the sky. These lyrics come from a ceiling drop during the show.  We needed to make planty of them, and also make them period.  Katie wrote up the appropriate lyrics onto different kinds of paper and scanned then in and double sided printed them.  I cut them out, adding paper punch holes and rounding edges as needed to complete the look.

 

Fabric cover of foam core boards for record wall decoration

Taffeta does not like to be taped or glued.  These 4 foam boards needed to get covered in the plaids that had been picked out and then put into the frames.  Initially tried taping them down, just pulled up with time.  So I used upholstery T pins poked in very shallow to hold the fabric in place.  I took the time to line up the plaid patterns pleasingly, centering a chosen color stripe vertically

 

Razor Blade mouth trick

Razor Blade in the Mouth Trick

!!!! Disclaimer !!!  Spoiler !!!!  

 Stop  reading if you do not want to know how this trick works.

This Magic trick is performed in Forever Plaid.  In this trick the actor takes a razor blade out of a handled shaving razor and sticks it in his mouth acting like he swallowed it.  He follows this with 2 more spare blades.  Then he takes some floss and cuts a pieces off and pretends to swallow it.  Then, after swallowing actions etc, he proceeds to pull out of his "empty"  mouth the 3 razor blades all tied together on the floss. 

This projects was all done by me start to finish.  How to do it was learned by all from a magic DVD.  Initially it was thought maybe will only need 8-12 sets.  Nope. Eventually ended up making close to 40 sets. (6 blades a set).  This prop has to be done very carefully.  They are put in an actors mouth, and these are real razor blades.  We don't truly want him getting cuts in his mouth.

It starts off with disposable razors blades.  These tend to come 10 to a pack and are slightly oiled to prevent them from rusting.  Needed to wipe each one off.

 

Contact paper is what is used to cover the blades and make them safe.  A 2"x2" square was cut out for each.  The buttons seen below come into play shortly.

 

Once the individual blade is wrapped in the contact paper, the excess needs to be trimmed off.  This has to be done carefully and well.  You don't want to cut to the metal and expose a razor edge, and if the angle of the curve cut on the contact paper is too steep, that edge becomes sharp.  I needed to make these absolutely safe for the actor. 

 

 For each set, one of the blades needs the center section of contact paper trimmed out so it will fit in the shaving handle. (Rt side below) Part of the actors action is to remove this blade in front of the audience.  It helps define what these are.  

He then proceeds to "swallow" it.  Followed by 2 more.  These get tongued to the inside of his cheek.  Next, he takes a length of floss and pretends to swallow that, tonguing it to the side with the newly inserted blades.

 

In the mean time, he has had a package in his mouth.  This has 3 of the razor blades strung along a string.  It has a button at one end to make it easy to grab and pull out the rigged blades.  These are always strung at a similar distance and on a length of string

 Below is a complete set, along with the HyMark thread used to string it, and 2 blades in the contact paper stage.  

Initially each set was wrapped as a whole in a zip-lock baggie.  After about a week or two of the show running, the actor and run crew asked that the components be separately combined.  The strung razors were each wrapped up into a sandwich bag and taped shut, and then put into a 1 gallon zip-lock bag. This keeps them orderly and not tangled with each other. 2 other zip-lock bags were then used. One for the center cut out prepped razors, and one for the singles.