[mrpopple]

Hi there.....am needing a little advice and am sure someone here will be able to help. Sorry if I have posted this in the wrong place.

We have just completed our second village panto which is performed to raise funds for the hall refurbishment. We take it very seriously and make every effort to make it the best possible show.

Our first year we hired in all our cloths, however this year we painted a lot of our own sets and only hired in a minimal amount of cloths (We have a very small stage and any cloths we hire have to be folded over umpteen times to make them fit). Anyway, we feel we did a very passable job of painting our own sets and want to branch out in to painting our own cloths for next year (so we have cloths that actually fit the stage!!) Can anyone advise what we should be using cloth wise for painting on to. I have looked at various websites but get a bit confused by it all. We thought sail cloth or duck canvas, but perhaps someone can advise on any other options.

Many thanks in advance for your help
Neil

[Ynot]

What you need is scenic canvas and this is available from various suppliers. The one we use mainly is Whaleys in Bradford. You give them your required cloth size and they'll send you the cloth. Specify what you need - webbing & ties at the top is normal with pocket at the base to weight the cloth (with either conduit or chain as you need - they'll supply with chain if needed). Price - as a regular customer we get our 8.5 x 4.75mcotton NDFR (non-durable fire retardent) cloths for around £150 (cotton has gon up recently) but I'm sure they'll give you a decent quote.

If you call them ask for Kevin Woodhead.

Oh, by the way - when painting, use water based paints mixed with wallpaper size - Emulsions will make the cloth very stiff when dry and the paint will crack over time, especially when rolled/folded. Also the emulsifiers can rot the fabric after not that long.
Some scenic painters I know do still use watered down emulsion but that doesn't solve all the issues.

This post has been edited by Ynot: 05 February 2011 - 10:48 PM

[kitlane]

How big are the cloths and how long do they need to last? Are they flown, rolled or tabbed? If you don't need the cloths to last more than a few shows you may be able to cut costs on materials.

[WiLL]

ALWAYS source the scenic canvas from a proper supplier, because the cloth must be Fire Retardant to be safe, NDFR means Non-Durably Fire Retardent which means fire retardent unless washed. Cloths hang very close to lanterns at times and can catch alight scarily easily. Getting a suitable sized cloth made to your measurements is easy, a few good companies exist such as J&C Joel. Just make sure when you are painting the cloth that you have put a plastic sheet under it, the paint will seep through and mark the floor underneath if you don't.
A handy tip when painting a large cloth is to have your image projected onto the cloth using an OHP, slide or video projector and use that like tracing paper to mark out the lines of your image in charcoal or soft pencil, this helps you accurately recreate the image over a large area. Don't use markers or felt tip pens of anykind as these will reappear when you repaint the cloth with a new scene later.
Flints Theatrical Chandlers stock a large amount of sceneic paints designed for this job or failing that, water soluble paints mixed with a dilute wallpaper paste works well enough.
As a final tip, the cloth suppliers could also sell you a storage bag for a bout £25-30 to keep the cloth clean when it's not in use.
Good luck!

[daifuse]

For the last 15 years or so, I've used calico backdrops (18'x13' - 5.3M x 4M) from Lancelyn for our local amdram panto's.
We use thinned emulsion and/or Rosco scenic matt with a small amount of pva mixed in. The first or base coat is usually sprayed on and then the detail applied by brush. The cloths are rolled and with care, some have lasted over 10 years (but this does depend on how much paint is applied). Incidentally, the cloths are painted hanging, not on the floor - they dry much quicker.

[WiLL]

daifuse, on 07 February 2011 - 11:51 AM, said:

For the last 15 years or so, I've used calico backdrops (18'x13' - 5.3M x 4M) from Lancelyn for our local amdram panto's.
We use thinned emulsion and/or Rosco scenic matt with a small amount of pva mixed in. The first or base coat is usually sprayed on and then the detail applied by brush. The cloths are rolled and with care, some have lasted over 10 years (but this does depend on how much paint is applied). Incidentally, the cloths are painted hanging, not on the floor - they dry much quicker.

Painting a hanging cloth certainly lets them dry more quickly, although it's only really viable if you have a safe platform from which to do it from, an a-frame ladder is not ideal, and really tiring and tedious to keep moving around.
p.s. I'm really envious of your storage room if you can keep backcloths rolled rather than folded

[Ynot]

WiLL, on 08 February 2011 - 09:01 AM, said:

Painting a hanging cloth certainly lets them dry more quickly, although it's only really viable if you have a safe platform from which to do it from, an a-frame ladder is not ideal, and really tiring and tedious to keep moving around.

A quick tip on that aspect of the topic...
Start at the top of the cloth and paint whilst the barrel is at approx head height or so.
When done, raise the bar to put the bottom of the previous section at head height.
Carry on til you get to the bottom...

Seemples.

Been done by a couple of the painters we use and it works.

[WiLL]

Ynot, on 08 February 2011 - 09:38 AM, said:

WiLL, on 08 February 2011 - 09:01 AM, said:

Painting a hanging cloth certainly lets them dry more quickly, although it's only really viable if you have a safe platform from which to do it from, an a-frame ladder is not ideal, and really tiring and tedious to keep moving around.

A quick tip on that aspect of the topic...
Start at the top of the cloth and paint whilst the barrel is at approx head height or so.
When done, raise the bar to put the bottom of the previous section at head height.
Carry on til you get to the bottom...

Seemples.

Been done by a couple of the painters we use and it works.

Providing you have a raisable bar

[Ynot]

WiLL, on 08 February 2011 - 09:44 AM, said:

Providing you have a raisable bar

Well, that sort of goes without saying....

[J Pearce]

Although if its just for cloth painting, it shouldn't be too hard to rig up a bar on 3 or 5 pulleys with each line tied off to 100kg of stage weights.

[daifuse]

Unfortunately, there is no height to fly, only 5M to ceiling from stage floor (it's only the Parish hall) and the cloths roll up from the bottom. As for storage, they are left in situ when rolled (they go up between the lighting bars). If the stage is not in use for any length of time they are dropped in to avoid creases. And yes, painting from an A frame ladder is a PITA, but there isn't much alternative other than a low platform.

[J Pearce]

You could rig a bar just for painting, so that you start at 1m, then 2m etc until you've painted the bottom. Leave to dry then transfer to roller.

[mrpopple]

Many thanks for all your replies and advice, much appreciated. Daifuse, your situation sounds similar to ours, we have a very small village hall and we have to roll our cloths from the bottom up too. Do you repaint over your cloths each year or do you keep them for future use? How much water should we add to emulsion to thin it down? This year we built a lot of our set that had flats folding in and out to create different scenes and used a skycloth with groundrows at the back to give depth, it worked well however as we were painting on to MDF it was easy to just slap the paint on. Obviously with cloths we'll need to be more careful about how much we use, hence watering it down. I know Roscoe paints are the best for this sort of thing but they are very expensive - does the difference in paint jusify the extra expense for a village hall panto?
Once again, many thanks for all your advise - keep it coming!
Neil

[andy_s]

If you use old fashioned scene paint,(powder pigments mixed with water and glue size, and applied warm - see Brodie and Middleton website for more information) on canvas flats or backcloths, you can wash them down to (more or less) bare canvas, and then re-prime them for repainting to use in your next show. This is better than painting over the old show.

Rosco paints can be diluted by 6 - 1 (or some of the supersats by 10 - 1) so although 1 litre is quite pricy, you could get possibly 6 litres, which compares quite well to most commercial emulsion paints, I think.

[w/robe]

Rosco is also very flexible so it is less likely to crack.

I've painted costumes with it and it has not cracked or flaked even over quite long runs.