Success. Costume. Pile of Clothes/Clothing Monster?!!

I was asked to watch a rehearsal of Success as I was asked to create a Pile of Clothes/Clothing Monster for one of the scenes.
The image that was being portrayed to me was a person laying on a bed, whom you could not see, as she was covered in a large pile of clothing. Then during the scene she was to sit up and look like a Clothing Monster sort of thing.
Before I went and watched the rehearsal the first image that popped into my head was the junk lady in the film Labyrinth, which David Bowie starred in. I did a quick research of this online and watched the scene when the junk lady appeared. I had an image of the actress, upon rising from the bed, being hunched over like the junk lady, with a large pile of clothes on her back.

I went and watched the rehearsal and in the scene the actress playing the part laid on the stage close to the audience. She first was facing face down on the floor. She kicked her legs up behind her, proceeded to roll over, bent her knees and slightly lifted her head up as if talking on a phone, then finally rolled back over.

On considering what I was being asked, I felt the suggestion of a pile of 'party clothes' would not be lying on a bed at a party, that it would rather be a pile of coats, jackets and cardigans and the likes, that had been discarded by the party goers.

 I also felt the items of clothing could be attached to a bedspread or the likes and possibly so not to have too much weight on the actress, to pad out the pile of clothes underneath with pillows or something similar, that was lighter in weight. After talking to the Costume Tutor about the scene and my idea, she went and conveyed that to the Director. On her return she said the coats would be too heavy and that the items needed to be lighter in weight and strange looking, such as on odd sleeve and scarf and shirts cut in half. The Director also preferred the Costume Tutors original idea of attaching the clothes to a piece of dark blue muslin cloth.
The muslin cloth had to cut in the middle then stitched back together along the 2 longer seams, so making it shorter but wider, as originally it had been one long, narrower length.
I was given a bag of old shirts by the Tutor, which I preceded to cut sleeves from some and the remaining part of the shirts I cut in half.
I also went and found colourful scarves, bow-ties and shawls to add to the bundle.

I pinned all these items, using safety pins, onto the blue muslin cloth. Around about the centre of the cloth I had pinned a gold shawl, that was very lightweight. It did all look very strange but apparently that was the affect that was wanted. I went and showed the Director and she appeared to be happy with it. She wanted to be sure that the actress would be able to see through it and I tried it on over me and the part that just had the gold shawl showing was fairly see-through, the rest not so where the other items of clothing hung.

 

The picture above shows me under the pile of clothes, taken at different angles. The actress playing this part was to be crouched under the pile and slightly rise when the phone rang and not lie down as she had during the rehearsal.

 

 

After speaking to the Director I went back to the costume room and stitched on the inside of the muslin cloth, a circle of white cotton in the position where the actress was to place her face, so she would be able to see through the part where only the gold shawl laid on the blue muslin.

 

Fugee. Props. Ivory Coast Passports.

I was asked to make 4 Passports for Fugee. My only brief to begin with was that they were to be African Passports. That they didn't need to be the same and originally it was thought that it may be good if they were all of different colours.
I went away thinking I would research different African Countries and see what different colour passports there were.
The most popular passport that came up often when first researching was South African Passports, which seemed to be green. After taking a look also at Tanzania, Ghana and Nigeria, it seemed that all African Passports appeared to be Green. When looking at Ghana Passports for example, the ordinary, standard passport was green, the diplomatic passport was dark red and the service passport was dark blue. Seeing as the Passports I were to make were for ordinary people it looked like I had no option other than green.
On further research it appeared that each country determines its own passport colour and quite a few countries belong to country groups and often used a standard design. so I can only presume that this may also apply to Passport colours.
Whilst researching, one of the Tutors mentioned the main character in Fugee was from the Ivory Coast, making him West African. After speaking again to the DSM it was decided that although the main character doesn't have a Passport on him, he is in a queue with other people, so we agreed that the Passports would be all of the same origin.
After researching further on Passport sizes it appears that size is mostly standardized, so I bought in an old EU passport of mine plus an old blue British passport that I still had. I felt the old blue one was of a better size for the stage. I showed the Tutor both the Passports and he agreed that the old style Passport was the better size.

Once I had a picture sample of an Ivory Coast Passport, picture top left, the Tutor and I felt that I should simplify it slightly and edit out the bottom logo along with the bottom 2 passport words. We also took away the top 3 lines, making our Passport start with the words Republique de cote d'ivoire. Once edited the Tutor printed off the edited version for me.
The printed out copy appeared on the left of an A4 piece of paper so I cut around the picture and re-stuck it so it would be on the right side of a piece of A4 . I did this as I intended to copy the picture onto Dark Green paper and the Dark Green paper would eventually be wrapped around card to form the Passport book, so the picture needed to be on the right.
I cut and wrapped a scrap piece of A4 around my old British Passport so I knew where to position the cut out Logo on the new piece of white A4 paper, I did this so it would be in the correct position when I came to print onto the Green paper.

The only Dark Green paper I found in the Art Shop was a large piece, so I had to cut the paper into A4 size so that it could go in the printer tray.
I had the Ivory Coast Passport image copied onto the Dark Green paper.
Once printed I had to go about painting over the black image with gold paint, as the front of the Passport has gold lettering and image.

This task was fairly time consuming and it is not perfect as I do not have the most steady of hands when using a paintbrush plus I struggled with the brush as I could not find an ultra fine one. Also the photocopy image was not clear in some areas. Even so I persevered and did as good job as I could.

 

The next job was cutting some stiff card the same size as the old Passport I had, to form a book, with which to wrap the Dark Green paper round.

 

 

After cutting out the cardboard book I folded the Green paper around it, cutting and folding as I went and once it was fitting correctly I glued it in place.

 

 

Finally I needed to make the inside of the Passport. The DSM informed me that the Passports did not need to be opened and that the actors were just going to hold them in their hands.

Whilst I was researching the Ivory Coast Passport it appeared to me that the inside pages were blue/green in colour, I did feel that the book needed to appear as if they had inside pages and not just glued shut as they were. I could not find any paper that looked right so I settled with a light green paper.

I cut out 4 pieces of corrugated cardboard, that wasn't too thick, to act as the interior pages and covered these with the green paper. I then stuck these into each individual Passport using a glue gun and pressed down firmly on each one.

The bottom right hand picture shows a Passport side view on, showing the interior 'fake' pages.

I worked on this project alone and enjoyed doing it. I do feel satisfied with what I have achieved but feel I may of approved on the finished outcome if I had finer brushes and also possibly a better grade of acrylic paint that had a higher pigmentation. The paint I used was a student quality and not an artist quality. The reason for this was the cost. I feel the finished Passports could of possibly done with a second coating in places but I could not afford that time. A higher pigmentation may of given a better finish that wouldn't of necessarily needed a second coat. 

 

 

 

Fugee and Success. Props. Burgers and Chips and Pizza Crusts! and a Birthday Cake thrown in!!!

I started to get involved with the prop making of the burger and chips and then eventually of the pizza crusts.
When I joined the prop making team, at this point, which was Pippa and Paige, they had already made all the chips and was about half way through in painting them.

CHIPS 

The chips were made as far as I could gather from gluing 2 lolly sticks together down the edge to form a 'V' shape and wrapping masking tape around them from top to bottom.
When I joined in, my first task was to add more masking tape running the length of the chip, as the masking tape had originally been wrapped round the sticks running downwards in a spiral motion, thus giving the chips ridges all the way down. By adding further tape in a lengthwise position, it gave the chip a flatter, smoother surface.

I then helped to paint the remaining chips plus re-paint the chips that had further masking tape applied, not every chip that had been made had the masking tape spiralling down the chip.
We initially applied yellow and white paint then a splash of gold looking paint then finally along the edges a touch of brown, ever so lightly, to give it that cooked slightly crispy burnt look. They were looking good. Enough chips were made to make 5 portions of chips that were needed.

One of the Tutors commented that they were all the same length and that smaller, shorter ones should also be made, which I did agree with. They were all uniform in size, which wouldn't be so if they were genuine chips. No further chips were made though, as we did have to get on with the rest of the props and time was of the essence, as we are currently working on 3 productions, and 2 productions were to be held quite soon and the props needed to be made and finished.
Also I questioned the thickness of the chips as they were definitely 'chip shop' chips and not like the fries that you get in 'fast food' chains and as it was going with burgers my question was whether they are restaurant food or fast food chain meals? which I did feel was a valid question but didn't really get a reply to, so I left it that and went along with what had been made.
Also I shall add here that as time went on and the chips had been left on the workshop table, other crew members would sit and add extra paint to the supposedly finished chips. So although they did still look ok, I must agree with one of the Tutors, they were now looking like roasted parsnips  :-)   note to oneself: once something is presumed finished, move it off the workshop table and put it away safely to one side so no-one can play around further with it, as idle hands like to find things to play around with!!

BURGERS

Pippa and I started to make the burgers together. We initially made a burger each by using print paper and wrapping masking tape round it to hold the paper in place and give it shape and form. We made the top and bottom of the buns individually and we each made a burger.

 When we compared our burgers we needed to make adjustments as we had to get uniformity of size. We decided to make the burgers slightly oversized as they were a prop and we felt they needed to be able to be seen clearly from the back of the audience. We also decided to make the actual meat burger part thinner, as I had made mine, as when the burger parts were to be put together, it couldn't look overly fat in size. We also decided to make some of the burgers as cheese burgers and made thin square slices out of the print paper.

The tomatoes that we decided to add to the burgers were going to be added on at the end when the burger parts were constructed together, again so it didn't add extra height to the finished burger. The tomato parts, were just that, small sections that were added to the final burger shape only to the outside edge. The lettuce leaves were also added on at the end and just stuck around the outside edge. We cut up some fabric ivy leaves that we had in the prop department.
As Pippa wasn't at college the next time I sat down to work on the burgers, I continued to make the paper burger parts as we had to make 7 burgers in total. After I had made all the parts I decided, after speaking to the Tutor, that I would assemble each individual burger together and hold them in place by stitching them together. I did this by using a very large needle, that was possibly an upholstery needle, and double cotton thread. It was quite difficult to push the needle through but obviously not impossible, and once securing the cotton to the bottom bun, proceeded to push the needle and cotton through all the parts, burger, buns (and cheese, when necessary), up and over the top bun and back through the other side, back down to the bottom bun again, where I secured the cotton off.

The next lesson I added in tomato pieces to the buns, that had been made in paper and masking tape and then 3 of us covered the burgers in 'mudroc', plaster of Paris bandages, to firmly secure all the burger parts together and make them durable and hard wearing.

Once reasonably dry, we started to paint the burgers. This was quite time consuming, trying to get what we felt was the right shades for the buns. I had taken a picture of burgers in Burger King's window for reference but it wasn't that a good of quality picture and it would of been handier if we had an actual burger bun in front of us.

 It was also difficult to try and match our colour tones for each individual burger so again there would be uniformity in the burger colours, as we all worked individually and building the paint colours actually up on the burgers and not in a mixing dish. We did struggle to agree which colour we felt was the best colour, so the final pieces do actually vary slightly in tones but I do not think this is a bad thing as the overall look of all the buns together, I think look good.

The picture I took of BK's burgers, had sesame seeds sprinkled on top of the buns, I felt rather than try and reproduce these or attempt to paint them, I had some sesame seeds at home, which I bought in and once the burgers had been painted and were dry, Pippa and I spread PVA glue on top of the buns and I sprinkled the seeds over the glue. Once the glue was dry, it went clear again and the finished result of the buns looked quite good.
The actual meat burgers, once painted with an initial brown coat, I then painted with a darker shade of brown and black, added in splodges, to give it a more meaty look. I painted one lot of the tomatoes that were in a burger with more detail on the top parts that were showing but the rest of the tomatoes were just painted red with no other detail. The cheese was painted yellow and when we had applied the 'mudroc' we curled the cheese down over the burger to give it the effect that it had melted onto the hot burger.

The finished burgers I glued lettuce leaves (cut from fabric ivy leaves) around the outside edge to give them a more authentic look.

PIZZA CRUSTS 

We needed to make pizza crusts, so Poppy and I decided to make 8 in total. We had not been given a specific amount and all we knew it was crusts to be found in 1 pizza box the next day after they had been eaten.
I made the crusts from print paper held in shape with masking tape and I also felt I needed to add a section of the pizza to each of the crusts so it would look more like the remains of a pizza. I felt just crusts would not be significant enough for the audience to see and look good.
Poppy and I then covered the crusts in 'mudroc' and allowed them to dry.

 

 

We again struggled to get the right shade of paint to look like crusts so we took a break from it.

 

When we returned to work on the crusts again it was Pippa and I. We added extra 'mudroc' to the uneaten part of the pizza to give it texture to appear like pizza toppings. Pippa then re-painted the crusts and she also painted the pizza topping part of the crusts.

 

 

 

 

BIRTHDAY CAKE 

Paige was assigned to make the birthday cake which she started to do using card and 'mudroc'.

 

After a discussion between us as to what the Birthday Cake was going to look like and as there was no preference to what type of cake it should be, other than it being a birthday cake, Paige made the cake to look like a Chocolate Cake.

 

 



 

Deacon Blue. December 2013. (Non College)/Midas PA Console

Had the opportunity to not only go and see Deacon Blue but to chat to the lighting technician and take pictures of the lighting and sound desk, which blew me away, as after working in the tech box for the Panto, the show desks were so much more complicated looking.

 

The large picture above is of the sound desk. I did not get to speak to the sound engineer but the desk blew me away with its size and the amount of monitors it had.

I was informed that the PA Desk was a Midas XLX and the cost of it was £170,000.00!! Beats the value of the desk at college.

After coming home and doing some research on Midas Consoles I couldn't find a XLX but did find a Midas XL8 which to me looks like the Console I took a picture of. Apologies to Midas and anyone in the know if I am incorrect in saying this.

I decided to give some information here about the LX8 but do take a look at www.midasconsoles.com for any more information, as this is where I have gained all the information I am about to write. Most of it in my own words :-) 

Midas Consoles are used for many major world tours and the company have been in business since early 1970.

The LX8 is used for live performances as the easy-to-use control surfaces have been designed to allow for fast navigation when required without the need to hunt through "layers" or "pages". The user navigates the system and identifies channels by colour and groupings which the user themselves create. This allows an individual approach to mixing, rather than working within hardware dictated numerical limitations.

The Midas daylight viewable screens ensures that the user never needs to mix blind no matter how bright the ambient light is.

I watched a short video clip of a sound engineer called 'Big' Mick Huges that works with Metallica and he was enthusiastic about the XL8 saying it has time saving plots and is only restricted by your imagination. He went on to agree with the interviewer that if using an analogue system when you reach the capacity it can then limit you to what you can do from that point on.

He enthused how the XL8 offers endless possibilities and did not agree with what some engineers claim to believe: that it takes away the creative decision making. He felt the analogue system was limited and that there was no limitation using the XL8.

He said some people would say that you can't get a decent rock guitar sound but he disagreed and felt that he could hear the individual guitar strings and says if anything digital gives too much intelligent ability and gives endless possibilities and that it is down to the engineer to use it to its full advantage.   

 

 

 

The above picture shows the lighting desk which had a touch screen. On the right side monitor was a list of the songs that were in the show, in sequence that they would be sung.

I struggled to hear the lighting technician as I was speaking to him during the sound check before the show plus also he had a Scottish accent that I had difficulty understanding.

The desk was quite cool, sadly I am not technically minded so am not the one to explain it the best.

 

Just some pictures of the show - showing the lights.

 

 

Just had to take a picture of my parking ticket for the evening (bottom right picture), it's the cheapest concert parking I have ever paid. £1 for the whole evening and in the car park directly next to the venue. Guildford Borough Council you rock!!!!

 

 

 

Christmas Carol. Props.

I did not work on anything for the Christmas Carol Production but I did go watch it and I just love Props, so again I thought I would include something of this on my Blog pages.

Paige made the original Christmas Pudding and there was a comment that it was too large but when I looked at it I could not see what the complaint was about as I thought the Pudding looked good but when I saw the first show it clearly was too big. They had put a prop chicken on the table and when they had to put the Pudding on the table they had to deliver a line saying it was such a small Pudding which was amusing as it was easy twice the size of the chicken on the table lol.

So before the next show Pippa had to make a smaller Pudding, as Paige was not available. The new Pudding was much smaller and I am sure would of looked more appropriate on stage. It also was probably still wet as there was not much time to complete the task before the next show. That's showbiz!

The top left picture is off the second Pudding and the bottom right picture is of the original Pudding. The bottom left picture shows the 2 Puddings together to show the comparison in sizes.

The other Prop I was intrigued with for the show was the door which had to have a slit in it for the ghost of Marley's head to poke through, (at least I think that's who head was to stick through as I am writing this half way through January and I had watched the play before Christmas).

 

The set was quite basic, which I have discovered since my journey has begun at college, that often the stage settings are minimalistic and crates seem to be used a lot.

The bottom right picture shows the chairs backstage, behind the curtain, where the Actors sat whilst waiting their call onto stage and clearly where they changed into their costumes.

I love being involved in the Theatre and being involved backstage and just enjoy taking pics of what happens to help make a production take place. 

Slice of Saturday Night. Fitting of Toile and adjusting of pattern.

Finally was able to have the first costume fitting of the Toile I had made, on the Actress, for the 1960's dress.
First thing that needed adjusting was the arm sleeve holes, which I was fully aware needed doing anyway. The original armhole did fit but it would of been uncomfortable.
After taking away some of the fabric the Tutor and I re-tried the Toile on the actress but decided to take some more away, this was to allow the armhole to fit even better and allow more movement for the arm and to allow space for the sleeve that was going to be added to the costume.
We needed to pin the top of the skirt up higher onto the bodice so the seam sat on the actresses waist as it was too low.
Next we needed to take the bust dart in deeper so the fabric of the bodice would sit better over the bust as there was too much fabric in the bodice. The neckline was also adjusted to a 'V' shape.
The Actress also wanted to have a long sleeve on the dress so it was decided that the sleeve would be of a sheer 'see through' fabric, slightly gathered at the top going down to a 4" cuff, where there will be a slight puffiness of fabric gathered at the top of the cuff.
Due to needing to make a sleeve we had to take further measurements of the top of the actresses arm and of her wrist, plus around the lower arm where the top of the cuff would be.
As we had pinned the skirt up higher onto the waistline, it meant that the dress hemline was now shorter, so I would now need to add an additional length to the dress and as the actress wanted it to be just below her knee, I felt a further 2 and half inches added to the hemline would be necessary.
The final dress is going to be made in a black or dark blue fabric, with possibly a bit of sparkle added to the front of the bodice.

After sitting and pondering for a while about the adjustments that needed to be made and not sure where to start, I did make a start by drawing a pencil line across the bodice at the point where that should now end, above the edge of the top of the skirt where that had now been pinned up.
I then took all the pins out that were holding the skirt to the new position so allowing me to take the side seam apart, initially up to the bust dart, so I could see how much needed to come off the bodice, which was to be an inch. (Picture below shows the pencil marking on the Toile of the adjustments that needed to be made, plus the original adjustment markings I had made on the paper pattern, before deciding to re-draw a new pattern).

Originally I cut an inch from my paper pattern that I had made and then proceeded to take the bodice and skirt seam apart so I could open up the mock-up and adjust the new position of the armhole against the paper pattern.
I started to attempt to make the adjustments to the paper pattern but then decided it would be easier to actually make a whole new paper pattern allowing for the new adjustments. I had discussed this with the Tutor and she was in agreement as we both felt it was essential for the outfit to fit my actress well to boost her level of confidence during her performance. It was also decided to make a whole new Toile once the new pattern was made and then try the new Toile on my actress before proceeding to make the final outfit.
I took apart the whole Toile but before doing so I marked the new bust darts on the old Toile with pencil and where I was to move the gathering to as well. I unstitched all the seams and took out all the pins, so I could start again. I cut an inch off the mock-up so when I drew round it, it would now be the correct length. (See pic below).

Initially I forgot to take out the back shoulder dart and bust dart and opened up the Toile and drew round both the front and back bodice sections onto new pattern making paper. After carefully looking at the newly drawn pattern and examining my original Toile I realised the new pattern wasn't right and took apart the darts and re-laid the Toile back onto the pattern making paper over where I had drawn and re-drew round the Toile crossing out the lines I didn't want. After asking the Tutor to check my work, as I must admit at this point it was making my head explode (lol), I cut the new paper pattern out. I marked on the new pattern where the back shoulder dart and bust dart should be. I also cut out a new skirt pattern, adding extra to the length as the actress told me she wanted the hem to be just below her knee. 

Panto. Scaling up Bushes and Clouds using an overhead projector. December 2013.

Theatre will often work to a 1:25 scale. But not on this occasion!  :-)

The original pictures of the Clouds and Bushes had been drawn by one of the Tutors onto paper, they were drawn to a 1:10 scale. After careful deliberation though, by the Tutor who was helping us to scale them up and transfer them onto hardboard, it was decided to do the clouds at 1:10 and the bushes at 1:20. I think this was differentiate the clouds from the bushes but no longer can remember for sure.  :-(

 

First the original drawing had to be traced onto tracing paper, which I did do, this was because we needed to use the drawings on an overhead projector.

 

 

Normally you would use acetate but we didn't have that, so we used tracing paper. The reason you needed a see through paper was the light of the projector would shine through the drawing and then project this image onto the hardboard.

Lois and Poppy I recall, then worked out the scaled up dimensions onto each individual drawing with the aid of a scaled ruler. Each picture of the clouds and bushes was then cut into individual squares which could be used separately on the overhead projector.

 

 

 

Some of the clouds and bushes, due to their size, had to have a straight line drawn through them and divide them into 2 sections. This was due to the fact that when they were projected onto the hardboard to the correct scaled up size, they were too large for the hardboard. The above picture shows this. When they were drawn up they were each given a letter to identify them and numbers as well, if they were to be divided into 2 sections, so we were able to then join the correct pieces together afterwards.

 

 

Each individual traced cloud and bush, along with its scaled up measurements, was then placed on the lit up overhead projector. The hardboard was placed at one end of the workshop and the projector was moved to a position, so that once it shone the image onto the hardboard it would be of the correct scaled up size.

Once the image was at the correct size someone, and I did take part in this, then drew around the projected image onto the hardboard so it could been seen and eventually be cut out.

This whole performance did take time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Panto. General Pictures of Behind the Scenes. December 2013.

I decided to add a page of general pictures I took behind the scenes during the Panto week.

The first picture was taken from the Tech Box of the stage in normal lighting and one of the same scene with the general lighting off and the stage cyc lit up in blue.

Next is a picture of the stage being swept, which was done before every show and one of the sound desk in the Tech Box.

 

Finally a picture of the dressing room where the actors got into their costumes and awaited their call onto stage. Billie was the Wardrobe Mistress and Lois assisted her. The room was furnished with many chairs for all the actors to be able to sit down on whilst they waited and also to keep some order to the room I would imagine.

 

 

Panto. Painting and hanging of Calico Trees. (December 2013). /Painting of Theatre Floor for Production.

Before the Trees could be painted, fabric tabs were machined sewn onto the top of the trees to enable it to be hung in the theatre. This was done by one of the Tutors.

One of the students was asked, whilst the making of the Trees was taking place, to research stage tree scenery, to give inspiration on how we could paint our Calico Trees.

 

The above picture shows the tabs sewn onto the top of the tree and also our scaled drawing that we originally worked from, coloured in, to show how the final piece was going to look.

 

The research pictures that were to inspire us.

 

The Calico Trees were finally painted by our Tutor. Due to their size they were laid out on the theatre floor on top of plastic sheeting, which was taped down, to secure it to the floor. Obviously the plastic sheeting was laid onto the floor to protect it from the paint being used.

Once painted they were hung in place with a note pinned to them as they did need another coat of paint and we didn't want the drama students thinking they were finished. It also gave us an opportunity to see how they were to look.

We did not use the Header, that we had drawn out from a scaled drawing, to hang between the 2 trees.

 

 

To hang the trees in the Theatre, the scaffold tower was used. The tabs on the trees were secured onto the truss.

 

 

 

Once the trees were dry from the first coat of paint, they were once again laid out onto the theatre floor upon plastic sheeting, and more detail shading was applied, again by the Tutor. (See picture below).

 

 

After the Theatre was used for painting the Trees, the floor was painted black so it would look fresh for the Production. Apparently it gets a coat of paint on a regular basis. The paint is applied by a team of workers (students and tutor) by roller brushes on long handles.

 

 

 

Panto. Applying Stage Gauze to the Calico Trees. (December 2013).

Once the Scaled up trees had been cut out of calico we had to add stage gauze to the top back parts of the trees.
We had to do this to give the leafy part of the tree, at the top, support, so it wouldn't droop down once hung in the theatre.
When we first found the stage gauze, which had been stored in the lock-up in a black bin bag, we discovered, for whatever reason, it was absolutely soaking wet! We hung the gauze to dry outside over the fence and dress rail, hoping it would dry and air sufficiently so we could use it. It did have a terrible musty smell to it at this stage.
Thankfully it did dry ok and we was able to use it.

 

We laid the top part of the calico tree out on the workshop floor and cut stage gauze to fit the cut out sections of the tree at the top, thus filling in the empty gaps with gauze to support the leafy part of the tree so it would not droop and fold in on itself.

 

 

We then glued the gauze into position on the back of the calico. This was quite time consuming because the gauze is predominately a holey fabric, so it took a lot of glue to secure it.

 

 

After the gauze was secured in position, (see above picture), we had to allow it to dry before it could be painted.