Stage floor

Back in June I did some work experience as a scenic artist.

You can read more about that here.

Well the scenery I helped work on was for a production of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens which is on at the National Theatre right now. In fact my parents went to see it last night.

I helped make the floor for the stage which was meant to look like paving stones.

First I had to spray the edges of the 1x1m wooden squares with a yucky brown paint.

Then they had to be sealed with button polish before we sprayed the surface with this gunky stuff to create texture. We did two layers of that, spreading it with a trowel each time, and then we painted on a grey wash.

We added rubber crumb around the edges of the squares to look like the dirt and moss that gets in the cracks of paving.

If you watch this video you can see all the staging being installed, including that glorious floor.

It's pretty cool to see it being used, having spent some long, tiring days many months ago working on it.

Also, there was an exhibition at the National Theatre about the making of Timon of Athens which I saw when I visited during the summer.

There were photos of every part of the production, including some photos of the floor being made.

Except they must have been taken the week after I was there!

Otherwise I totally would have been in them.