as farrell wrote on her post, we got a lot of things done tonight. I came back in a little later and jan had just painted the outside of the box black and attached the door to the set. I made red curtains for the window that opens to the kitchen. We tried to take the family portrait but i didn't realize my camera was dead so we'll have to do it tomorrow. We also realized that we need to construct a frame for the bottom of the set with the pieces of wood on the sides extending back a few inches so that we can clamp the set to the sawhorses we plan to use to elevate it. That will secure the set, which will be quite heavy in the front once we attach the wooden frame.

We got quite a bit done today...built the frame for the front of the set, elevated the furniture on wooden dowels, enlarged the hole for the kitchen, added some finishing touches to the kiddy birds and finished the worms that are gonna go up on the wall. We still have a lot to do but hopefully we all get a chance to come in before thursday's class as our schedules allow.
Some things any of us can do between now and thursdays class:
-make curtain to conceal us underneath the stage
-curtain for window
-finish kitchen set to go behind mom (i'll be working on that)
-family portrait
-fix dad to chair
-attach door
-paint the frame and outside of set

i should be in the studio around 6 or 7 tomorrow night.

So i went in for a bit tonight and finished attaching pieces of wood to each bird head for the dowels to fit into. I also measured the box we're using for the main set and will make a plywood frame to attach to the front of the set tomorrow afternoon in the woodshop. Also, the pieces of wood we glued to the foamcore to correct the bowing last Tuesday seemed to work well and the side pieces stand on their own inside the box.

meeting

Hey guys, we're all gonna try to meet again this sunday at 1 p.m. in the studio.

During Tuesday's class Farrell and Jan continued to work on the set, gluing down the wallpapered panels and building props for the interior. Matt and I continued work on the puppets themselves. I finished painting the last bird, adding feathery highlights and painting the cheeks turqouise to brighten it up and add contrast. I also attached the wings using the spring attachments Matt had figured out earlier and made another set of springs to attach the wings to the papa bird. Everything seems to be coming together nicely now and Jan said she's bring part of the script she's been working on so I'll probably spend Thursday helping her write.

During yesterday's class I painted the mom's head in what turned out to be flourescent colors. She looks especially crazy but I suppose that'll make sense with her puking mechanism. I just need to do some details on her, like finish painting the eyes and add some contour lines, shadows and highlights. Farrell and Jan started constructing the shadow stage but we also need to assemble the interior of the main stage. The wallpapered foam boards needed to be flattened as they bowed despite the weights we placed on them while they were drying but we stacked them and added more weight so hopefully they'll be fine tomorrow morning.

Color!

Today's meeting was very productive indeed. Matt was able to cover the metal wing forms with tissue paper and then we managed to cover all of our background foamcore pieces with wallpaper that matches our couch and chair quite nicely.
Meanwhile Farrell and Jan were able to begin painting two of the bird puppets and the egg. We opted for bright colors, which clash nicely with the bland interior. Things are really starting to look like they're coming together now that we've begun applying color to everything. We'll spend Tuesday's class continuing to paint the birds and rigging the mechanisms so that we can then cut the slit in the back of our set in order to move the puppets as needed.

meeting Sunday, 1 pm

Well, we continued with Tuesday's work today and figured out some more of the bird mechanisms and spray gessoed the beaks for an extra smooth finish. We decided to meet in the classroom on Sunday at 1 pm and get some more work done. I'll be bringing wall paper, Farrell's gonna bring some more foam core to line the inside of the box and cover the outside so the box looks more polished, and Jan's bringing a print out of a Finch so we can get a general idea of the markings on the face and body. I think we have most everything else we need to work on in the studio so we should be able to get a lot done on Sunday.

slow going...but progress nonetheless

So our birds are still white. but we finally coated the bodies with gesso and learned how to use the molding paste for the beaks and the egg. We learned to wait for the molding paste to harden before attempting to smooth it out and found using our fingers worked best. Matt figured out that wetting your fingers a bit and smoothing out the paste gives it a nice sheen. Jon and Matt finished the wire wing forms for two of the birds as well. We decided that larger, exaggerated wings would be ironic and make sense considering how large the heads are in comparison to the bodies.