Tag: Couldnt

An In expensive Display Board For A Leisure Painter’s Group
by David Burgess on 0

An In expensive Display Board For A Leisure Painter’s Group

Why Does An Art Group Need Display Boards.

Do you belong to an art group looking for inexpensive and usable exhibition venues?
Have you thought about making your own display boards to help ease your problems with hanging paintings or craft pieces?
Your own display board can really help to solve the problem of where, and how, a group can hold exhibitions. The greater the choice of venue, the more choice there is for dates and arranging things becomes so much easier. This in turn can lead to saving money, important but especially so for a small group of leisure painters.

The Knowle Art Group is just such a group, we had been running into difficulties deciding where to hold our exhibitions.
The usual local libraries, etc, were getting to be too expensive. The less expensive halls to hire usually meant that there was no where to hang our paintings. They did not cater for groups like ours, wanting to hold an art exhibition. It was possible to hire display boards but again the cost was prohibitive.

The solution was going to be do-it-yourself display boards which we could stand on available tables. The idea came to us after exhibiting in an old Manor House where of course we couldn’t knock anything into the walls and the combined cost renting the room and hiring display boards was too much for us. The original idea was to construct a framework out of rough wooden poles. It worked well in the ancient property but couldn’t be used in other locations. After some thought the idea behind the display boards was arrived at. here is how the boards were made.

The Basic Idea

For Our Display Boards

The display boards were to be used by standing them on tables, which are always available at any hall or room for hire. This meant that they did not have to be large ( heavy and expensive) and waste the bottom two thirds of the available area. the tables could be covered with paper banqueting roll to give a professional appearance. We have since made some white table cloths as one of our members is a seamstress and this gets over the problem of the paper ripping at the slightest provocation.

The idea was quite simple, a board with two hinged side panels would be used to increase the available area for hanging the paintings. In other words we got 50 % extra space compared to the length of the tables. This also had the benefit of giving us a stable configuration. The board was held in place by slotting into two wooden battens ( runners) which were provided with carefully placed slots. A final touch was to hold the rear of the board to the rear runner by using a single screw. This prevented the board from bowing out and again increased the stability.

The Display Boards Are Made From Three Simple Components

The Hinged Back And Two Battens
Here is a photo of the hinged back. The sides are half the width of the center portion so that when it is folded up they do not interfere with each other. Of course the board is stored and moved in the folded condition. The whole thing is painted white, which we felt was appropriate for an art exhibition.

This photo shows the two battens positioned roughly on the table, waiting for the board to be placed in the slots. The paintings around the wall are waiting to be hung. We always have a practice before the day we set up the exhibition so that we can arrange the paintings most efficiently and effectively. This photo was taken at one of these practice sessions which is why there is no tablecloth.

You can see the slots, in this detail photo. We did not have a jig for the ten boards that we made but simply placed the board on the battens and marked the position of the slots which was cut with a saw and widened with a file. The slots are cut about two thirds of the way into the batten to allow the small bolt at the rear to go through the board and through the batten.

The measurements of the boards were to suit , but I will be creating an outline sketch of the three components which will be added to the lens very shortly

A Few More Paintings Waiting Their Turn

This is the first step in arranging the paintings, we put out ten tables (one for each board) and roughly decide which paintings will go on which board. We tend to theme each board; water, mountains, figure, animals, boats,etc. Not really necessary but it gives a great show for the public.

Hanging The Paintings On The Boards

Another Little Secret, Sschhh!!
The way we hang paintnigs on the boards is quite simple. We use brass hooks over the top of the board which support brass chains. For larger paintings, a pair of hooks/chains makes a very stable combination.

Having roughly positioned the paintings on the tables, we can then carefully hang them on the display boards.

The paintings are of course numbered for the catalogue and this identification is used to position them easily on the morning of the actual exhibition opening. And voila, a very professional display at a very inexpensive rate. Once made the boards can be used year after year, with just a new coat of paint.

The Final Outcome

One of Our Exhibitions
Here you can see how the boards can be arranged, and how we also press into service our painting easels for the very large paintings or to get a few more paintings on show.

The Boards Used In A Different Configuration

We Found A New Venue This Year
A view of the hall from above…. showing the boards arranged to take advantage of the natural lighting in the new venue. They also ensure that the visitor has to walk back around the paintings to get a second to the exit which means they get a second look.

Share on Read Full Story
Equus with Daniel Radcliffe
by David Burgess on 0

Equus with Daniel Radcliffe

Equus – starring Daniel Radcliffe and Richard Griffiths.

Equus the Play has been a hot topic of discussion amongst the theatre community for a long time.

In the Fall 2008, Broadway was graced by Harry Potter stars, Daniel Radcliffe and Richard Griffiths. They starred in the West End, sell out transfer, of Peter Shaffer’s Equus at The Broadhurst Theatre, NYC.

In this article you will find opinion of Equus the play, Equus reviews, and interviews with the stars of Equus, as well as how to get your hands on a copy of Equus the film, as well as the Equus play script and the Equus study guide.

Equus Theatre Poster, featuring Daniel Radcliffe

Isn’t it beautiful?

So, What Did I Think of Daniel Radcliffe in Equus?

honest, I thought it was alright, but I wanted more from Radcliffe. I saw the second preview, so his performance was still finding it’s feet (there was a rather embarrasment moment at the end, where Richard Griffiths had to show him how to bow!)

I really wanted to love this show, as I was in a production of it with a theatre company a few years previously, but I was left with a strange taste in my mouth. I couldn’t help feeling that there are better actors out there who could take on the role. Radcliffe was, for me, just OK. He didn’t have enough diversity in his performance, the only diversity was in his vocal projection – quiet, loud, or shouting. Richard Griffiths was superb, as I had hoped. The production as a whole was ‘revived’ from it’s original conception in the 70s, recreating the wired horse masks, as using a minimalistic set.

This show has created huge controversy, primarily due to one scene in Equus that sees Daniel Radcliffe nude, completely starkers, naked, no clothes, nada (and we’re not talking just shirtless either)…yes, gasp you might!

Daniel Radcliffe gets nude on stage

…or Harry Potter Gets His Wand Out

seeing Radcliffe’s disappointingly bland and shouty performance, I couldn’t help feeling that it was stunt casting that gave him the part. Having a name like, Daniel Radcliffe, in a lead role that goes fully naked on stage, is a guaranteed sell out. Who isn’t interested to see whether or not he actually takes his clothes off?

I find something awkward about it. I don’t know why. I’m not a prude by any means. I only find it distasteful because Radcliffe is so strongly associated with Harry Potter – an icon of children’s literature. Millions of children look up to him and adore him…and in the late 2000′s he was still a teenager and is appeared naked infront of hundreds of people. It’s just, I don’t know, kinda weird.

I suppose I also wouldn’t mind so much, if it wasn’t the topic of conversation every time someone talks about the show. If there’s a publicity shot for the show, it’s of Radcliffe topless. No one stops and talks to him about the fundamental issues of playing a young teenage character growing up and needing psychiatric care. No one talks about the interesting stage design or the beautiful horse masks. All people seem to care about is Daniel Radcliffe getting taking his clothes off and showing everyone his wand, so to speak.

Is Daniel Radcliffe Right For The Part?

Is it stunt casting? Are there better actors out there? Is Radcliffe too associated with Children’s Literature to go naked on stage?

Is Daniel Radcliffe right for the part of Alan Strang?

Alan Strang (Radcliffe)

Equus Synopsis and Study notes
*may contain spoilers*
Equus tells the story of a troubled stable lad, Alan Strang, who has an unusual relationship with his horses. Worshipping his god, Equus, it all seems relatively harmless. Then interactions with the stable girl, Jill, takes a course of action that leads him to be submitted to a psychiatric care. Persuaded by his life long confident, Dr. Martin Dysart, child psychologist, takes on the boy and begins to unravel what happened, and what led him to brutally attack and blind six horses with a metal spike – all the time dealing with his own demons.

Originally opening as a play in the 1970s, starring Anthony Hopkins as Dysart, Equus has gone on to marvel audiences and inspire discussion. Amazon currently stock a study guide to Peter Shaffer’s
Equus as a digital download.many
universities and drama departments study the text and play, as it raises interesting debate about the nature of theatre and rituals, as well as innocence and loss. An intriguing set of characters guide us through this troublesome story. Questions are raised about identity, religion and sex. How did a teenage boy become so ensnared in a faith, to the extent that his staunch beliefs would give him such powerful feelings of guilt and shame, that would lead him to attempt destroying his very own god. Emotionally charged, gripping and captivating. An extraordinary play that will stay with you, even after you’ve left the theatre.

Want to Know More About Daniel Radcliffe?

What other theatre has Daniel Radcliffe been doing since Equus?
Since Equus, Daniel Radcliffe has been busy! Not only did he have to finish off the Harry Potter films, but he has gained a few more theatrical accolades under his belt.

He went to Broadway and starred in the musical How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. The musical was a super hit and went down very well with critics.

In the middle of 2013, he then went to star in The Cripple on Inishmaan as part of the Michael Grandage season at the Noel Coward theatre, London. Another challenging role, not only by virtue of having to perfect an Irish accent, but also because he had to play his role with half his body contorted into a cripple-like stance. I saw it in June, and it was excellent!
What are the Twitterati saying about Equus?

Alan and Gill, the Stable Girl

This is the prelude to Daniel Radcliffe’s controversial sex scene that-never-actually-happens in Equus

Share on Read Full Story
A band being Blue Man Group for Halloween
by David Burgess on 0

A band being Blue Man Group for Halloween

How we turned a band into Blue Man Group for Halloween

This page shows how one of my bands went dressed as Blue Man Group for Halloween. It starts with the background, tells some of the issues we ran into, tells how we did the makeup, and more! This is a reprint off my website www.susanszoocrew.com

The beginning.

We were scheduled to play at a big Halloween party and were told we *had* to play in costume. Only makes sense to play in costume at a Halloween party, right? We wanted to do something where all three of us were the same theme but couldn’t decide. It had to be something we could relatively comfortably play/sing in, that wouldn’t get all over our instruments, and that didn’t require a huge outlay of time since we had to set up equipment and all. This is a little harder than it may seem to come up with! At our last practice before the gig I was showing a video of Blue Man Group doing part of one of the songs we were covering. My guitar player looked at it and say, Hey, that’s it! Let’s go as the Blue Man Group! Considering that two of us are women, and all three of us play guitar, it was a bit of a stretch! Blue Men with figures and no PVC tubes? Well, we all have a good sense of humor so that sounded like fun! In the days before the gig it rained…and rained..all around town outdoor gigs were being cancelled or shortened. So I didn’t have high hopes for staying dry at the party even though we were on a covered porch. As it turns out, the porch faced west and the rain would come from the east so even in the rain we would be dry. Wet costumes and equipment would not have been fun! To our collective delight, the rain held off for the rest of the night and we stayed nice and dry.

We had decided that setting up equipment is hard enough working without trying to keep makeup on, so we headed out and set up the equipment first. This ended up being a really good idea, allowing us to just come in and start playing. We did discover one bad feature about a house that was between the river and the ocean: bugs. Not just bugs, but biting bugs. I’ve lived in Florida almost my whole life and have never been eaten alive by no-see-ums so fast! They were even eating through bug spray! After being nibbled on for a while, we were finally all set up.

Makeup!

For the rest of this story, Keith = guitar player and Evelien= the singer. 🙂

Then it was back to the house to put on the makeup. Keith had ordered liquid latex from an online supplier, with the idea that it would be flexible and we could paint our faces and the bald caps with it at all once. We all changed into our outfits (black long sleeved turtlenecks and black pants) and got ready to put on the makeup. When Evelien and I opened the jar, we were wondering what the layer was on top%u2026 then we realized that it was dried latex. Hoping that what was underneath was useable, we pushed aside the top layer. What was underneath was chunky and definetly not liquid, more of a cream-not good. We tried using it anyway, even tried diluting some of it with water-no go. The brand new, freshly ordered paint was no good! Here it is, almost time to leave, and no latex and no blue men/women.

Luckily, since none of us knew how the liquid latex would stay on while singing, we had a backup plan. I had bought two cakes of blue greasepaint and brought with me a can of blue spray paint that matched the greasepaint. Keith and Evelien picked up some hair dye spray in case that worked better. I had some experience with grease paint from watching clowns do their makeup and participating in talent contests, so I knew a few methods of working with it and knew we’d be able to play and sing in it.

We decided to put on the baldcaps first, which took a bit of doing. Cutting out the ear holes was a bit of an adventure in trying not to give unexpected haircuts to each other! We decided to do Evelien’s costume first, so with a few dabs of spirit gum and judicious tucking in of hair, Evelien had her bald cap on. Keith went off to figure out which paint would work best, figuring we’d spray the other two caps before putting them on. Meanwhile, I painted Evelien a nice shade of blue%u2026 ears and all! The hardest part is getting the paintee to relax while fingers are smearing makeup around near their eyes.

Working with greasepaint isn’t bad, you just have to watch how much you put on. The fun part was setting the makeup..you use baby powder and pat it all over the greasepaint. Evelien wasn’t quite sure how baby powder was supposed to work and seemed a bit reluctant at having it put on. As we were running out of time, there wasn’t much room for discussion. So, I got to poof Evelien’s face with baby powder%u2026%u2026.judiciously! It was a bit tricky keeping it off the black turtlenecks, even with a towel, but it brushes off pretty well. Just make sure that the person brushing off the baby powder isn’t the same person applying the blue greasepaint or you’ll have black and blue clothing (oops). Also make sure the powderee doesn’t breathe in while being powdered, powder between breaths.

Keith came back with the paint results during the powdering process-we’d have to paint the caps after they were on or the paint would flake off. Keith asked why Evelien was blue and white- I explained that the powder sets the top layer of makeup but not the bottom so it stays flexible and doesn’t crack; although we might have to repowder as we sweat because it will get shiny. I showed Evelien how to flick off the extra powder and pretty soon she was all blue with no white. Powder discussion over, it was time for painting Evelien’s baldcap… soon to be another lesson in trusting the people doing your makeup.

We quickly found out four hands are better than two, one person holds a sheet over the parts you don’t want to paint while the other carefully but quickly sprays the baldcap%u2026 and the paintee holds their breath so they don’t breathe fumes. We ended up using hands to covers ears but a bit of blue spray paint on our fingers just added to the costumes. We managed to keep most of the spray paint off Evelien’s skin. Once Evelien was done, we surveyed the results%u2026%u2026.not bad! Then it was mine and Keith’s turn. We had a bit trickier of a time with putting on the bald caps due to having long hair. We ended up not gluing the backs down and just ran our ponytail/braid down the backs of the turtlenecks. Long hair makes the spraypainting harder too, the flap of cap down the back has to be sprayed away from the hair. Somehow my cap was a different construction than theirs and had a lot less side flap-this worked out fine because I needed to wear my glasses and the extra material would’ve made this tricky. We quickly got our makeup on and powdered each other up. I did learn it’s easier to powder someone who is sitting down than someone who is standing up when they are taller than you!

By now it was time to go, so we grabbed the spirit gum in case anyone came loose and everyone piled into the truck.

The gig!

We quickly got to the party, and since it was time to play walked straight on stage and grabbed our instruments. Our percussionist was a friend named Andy who had come in a giant bunny costume. So we had three blue men/women and a bunny! Bunny didn’t last too long because Andy couldn’t see to play, so we used the dolly and set it up next to the bass amp. We did find one awesome side effect of our costumes-since there wasn’t much skin exposed the bugs pretty much left us alone, attacking only bare parts of the feet.

The show itself went off well and everyone had a great time. It was funny to see how many people mixed up Evelien and I in the blue faces when talking on breaks%u2026..considering that I wear glasses and she doesn’t you wouldn’t think it was possible! The makeup ended up working out well, the caps stayed on and only needed minor touchups at the end of the night behind the ears mostly. By the end of the night some of the blue makeup had worked its way onto the turtle necks, but not as much as I had thought we would have had. It was rather amusing watching grownups dancing around in costumes%u2026..watching men dressed as fairies sing along %u2026.. people trying to drink / eat through masks%u2026

After the show we packed up the equipment and headed out to a local place (Jetty Lounge) to join the rest of the crowd. Once we were through there (the full moon brings out some interesting people%u2026) we headed back to the house to remove the makeup. It had been a while since I had to take the makeup off, but I knew I’d always used baby wipes, baby oil, and baby shampoo-I just couldn’t remember which order. Evelien was first, and the baby shampoo didn’t do much. Then I remembered the right way, and we finished getting the makeup off. You take a baby wipe, dump a little oil on it, and smear it on the makeup. Pass number two wipes off the makeup and you repeat until wipe is full of color. Grab another one and keep going! The hardest part is getting it out of your ears%u2026..I think we all had some left over the next day.

All in all we had a great time, learned a few lessons along the way (always have a backup plan!) and got to play some awesome music for appreciative people and friends. What more could a band ask for? Except fewer bugs that is ….. 🙂

Share on Read Full Story
Persian Band Concert
by David Burgess on 0

Persian Band Concert

My experience taking photographs in a live concert

Taking photograph of a live concert is not an easy work. You need good camera, good lenses, and good position near the stage to be able to take the best pictures. One of the assignment in my photography course was to take good photos of live music concert. Considering the fact that I didn’t have those great equipments, I decided to come to a music concert that was held in a small auditorium. Thus, the distance between me, the stage, and the musician won’t be too large, and I could take decent photos with my fifty millimetres lenses.

The concert was held in one of the university in Hyderabad. The performers named”Persian Band”, a group consists of Iranian and Indian musicians. In this article, I would like to share some of the best photos that I successfully took during the concert. Please kindly give me your feedback and comments.

About the concert of Persian Band

It was a small, but very memorable concert
The concert of Persian Band was held in April 2012, just a week before the deadline of my concert photography assignment for my diploma course. I found the concert as a perfect opportunity for a beginner photographer like me to sharpen my skill. It was impossible for me to take a photos of a band who performs in big venue, as I didn’t have appropriate zoom lens to take a good close-up photos. Thus, this concert was my only hope to complete my assignment.

Luckily, the organizer gave me a journalist seat, a place near the stage which allows me to take good photographs. They even said that I could approach the stage if I need better angles. As the size of the stage was not very large (approximately only ten by twenty meters), it wasn’t a big problem for me to take the photos of the concert.

The Persian band consists of three members: two female vocalists, three guitarists, a bassist, and a drummer. Three of the members are from Iran, and the rests of them are from India. The concert lasted about one and half hour, and during that much period I focused on taking close-up pictures of each band member. I wanted to take some photos from different angles and want to make the viewers of my photo feel the music within the photos. The images that I took should look dynamic and dramatic

Taking the photographs

It is not as easy as it seems
Believe me, taking photos of a musician performing on stage is not as easy as taking photos of a model. You need to always put your eyes on the viewfinder and be ready to click the shutter button on the right moment. When you miss the best moment, it is gone forever. I almost couldn’t enjoy their performance because I was too busy with my camera, struggled to capture the most memorable moments from the concert. However, judging from the audience’s big applause, I thought the band performed very well.

I also had to move a lot, from one side to another. Sometimes, I missed a good moment because I was on the move and was not ready to click my camera. Sometimes when I got the perfect angle and moment, I missed the focus point so the image was very blurry. Indeed, it takes a lot of hard work and efforts to be able to take good photographs of a live concert.

Fortunately, I managed to take around twenty good photos. I submitted those images as my assignment in my photography course. Some of them (which I couldn’t publish on this lens due to copyright issues) were selected to be featured in a local magazine and exhibited at a university exhibition. Based on my experience, I strongly suggest all beginner photographers who read this lens to go to a small concert and try to take as many good photos of the performers as possible. It is a very challenging task, but when you successfully accomplished the task, your skill and confidence as a photographer would significantly increase.

Share on Read Full Story