Objective
Students will demonstrate their scenic painting skills by painting brick onto plywood.
Materials Needed
- plywood
- paint brushes - texture materials: rags, sponges, rollers (mini ones)
- paint - chalk - pencils - rulers
Lesson Directions
Anticipatory Set/Hook
Show a picture of a brick wall. What does the texture look like? Is there spackle? Are all of the bricks the same color? Just have them analyze all of the little details of the picture.
Instruction
Step 1: Explain that today we are going to learn how to paint brick. One would not want to use real brick on stage, it is heavy and not cost efficient. So paint can save a lot of money when building sets.
Step 2: The boards should already be red from the day before.
Step 3: Take a ruler and measure the width side, making marks at every 8 in. point. Use chalk or pencil, so that it is very light or can erase. The lines should be 2 in. apart up and down. Draw the lines across. Where you made the 8 in. Point, you must draw a 2 in. line down to the next line. Then you have to draw a 2 in. line down every other 8 in. block that does not already have a line going down. Look at picture of brick to help you. It helps if you practice this first before teaching the class. You could even have an example ready, for the students to go off of, because this part can get confusing.
Step 4: Speckle and texture needs to be added to your red brick. You can use browns, greys, and blacks or any darker color to sponge onto the brick. You need to spackle and make it look very textured.
Step 5: Now you need to add the filling or mortar to the brick, which goes over the lines you have traced before. You need to use some sort of grey color. The mortar needs to also have shading, a darker color of grey along the edges of it, to add effect. The filling is just a thin line, so it needs to be painted with a smaller brush.
Step 6: When it’s finished, you can spackle some more because spackle looks great. You can also dry brush it, which means you take a dry brush and run it down the painting a couple of times and it spreads the paint slightly, which makes it have not so clear cut lines, which will also add reality and make it look authentic. Then they need to paint out their board into a new color, so that it can dry by the next day.
Closure:
Discuss what shows could use brick in their set. Pretty much any show! But it will get them talking.
Assessment
Assessment: 5 points attendance, 5 points participation, 5 points for painting brick.