New York, New York

I finally made it to the city! I had a few things I wanted to see but I mostly just walked and walked. Whenever I'm travelling a lways find that the best way to get to know a city. I like to walk and see what I come across accidently rather than immedietely hit all the touristy spots.

There was still alot of snow around, even though the roads and sidewalks had been cleared. I pity the poor person whose car this is...

New York night, the view from the Empire State Building...

Boston...

We took a trip upto Boston to drop off the last cloth. Its about a 4 hour drive from New York so I decided to stay the night and go down to NYC in the morning.
Every year Hasty Pudding Theatricals have a woman of the year show. This year the lady in question was Julianne Moore. Traditionally, they have a big parade and then the woman of the year has a roast. However, the parade was cancelled because of the weather but we stil got to go to the roasting, where they pretty much take the piss out of poor Julianne and then she gets a gold pot.She was in good spirit thought and everyone had a good laugh. Afterwards there was a preview of the show and we got to see some of our lovely cloths we just painted!!!

the lovely Julianne Moore...

We also got to see the full effect of the translucency on the gods cloth, which was really exciting!

frontlit...

backlit...

Boston sunset...



As I was in Boston, so was one of my favourite perfomance companies, Les Sept Doigts de la Main (The Seven Fingers), who specialise in contemporary circus. I first came across them when I saw their show Traces in Glasgow, I went on a whim and absolutely loved it. So naturally when I saw they were performing their show Psy in Boston- I had to go!

It was awesome, great music and some incredibly talented perfomers...

Last day...

Again having difficulty taking pictures of the whole thing on the floor. So here are a couple of the details...




I've realy enjoyed my time here at Cobalt and feel like I've learnt alot and been introduced to a sightly different way of working.
I was lucky the desgins were so detailed as I got to try out a whole range of techniques, aswell as work alongside the other students.

Nettng...

First of all, we had to flip the cloth and back paint it so that it was opaque and no light got through while onstage. We then had to glue on some netting because the cloth had been cut. We dipped the net in size and stretched it out using these wooden blocks making sure it was straight and taught.

To keep it in place we had to go along an put a little glue blob anywhere it made contact with the drop and extra on all the edges.

Roller fringe...

We had to add the texture of the fringe at the bottom of the drapes so Brian cut up some rollers into an appropriate pattern so it would be much quicker to apply. We went through the same process as we did on the palace interior cloth. Shaddow, base yellow, highlight yellow, then hot highlight and bounce orange.


We also stencilled the top drape with its slightly different pattern.

Blue faces and Whiskey (its must be Burns night)...

We decided to celebrate Burns night in New York. I made our veggie haggis and since, ironically enough I was one of the only people in the house who hadn't seen Braveheart, we painted our face blue and wore kilts made from shirts in tribute.

Adventures of a veggie haggis...

So its Burns night and there isn't much supply of veggie haggis around ol' Sulivan County so I decided to make my own. Thanks to this recipe-

Ingredients:
1 small onion, diced
2 tablespoons oil
1 carrot, grated
1 cup mushroom, sliced
3/4 cup red lentil
2 cups vegetable stock
1 cup kidney bean
3/4 cup mixed nut, ground
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary
1 pinch cayenne
salt, to taste
black pepper, to taste
3 cups quick oats
1/2 cup scotch
1/2 cup water

Do this:
1 Saute the onions, carrot and mushrooms until tender.
2 Add the red lentils and stock. Bring to a boil.
3 Add the kidney beans, nuts, spices, soy sauce, and lemon juice. Bring to a boil again.
4 Simmer 10 minutes, covered.
5 Sit in oatmeal, Scotch, and water.
6 Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Oil 8 ramekins or muffin pan (18 muffins) or a loaf pan.
7 Fill ramekins, muffin pan, or loaf pan. Cover with foil.
8 Bake for 30 minutes (longer for a loaf pan). Remove the foil and bake 5 more minutes, uncovered.

(Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/vegetarian-haggis-183371#ixzz1CuyIZQPC)

the last week...

The designer had requested that we tone down some of the ceiling colour as they were a littel bold again the rest of the pillars, so we took some of our marble base and washed it over the top.
Then, it was stenciling time...
Brian and I were working together one spaying the main stencil colour and the other putting in the hightlight stripe.

For the bigger pieces we had to decide on a direction to take our stencil. In some places we faded the edges where we were spraying so that when we lined it up next time, there wasn't an obvious join.

Weekends at Cobalt.....

As its kind of the middle of nowhere, you have to create your own fun.
Our method uses beer case hats and chocolate chip cookies...

amy's modelling career never quite took off...

ice ice baby... a walmart adventure...

a night at the prancing pony...

my homemade chewy chocolate chip cookies...