Royal Opera House....Part 2.

I managed to get some sleep at the weekend and went in with a positive attitude on Monday morning. It was much the same as the previous week, I spent the morning cleaning buckets. I think it was just that I had come at a time that there wasn't really much to do, well there was, but they didn't need any extra hands, especially a pair of hands that they didn't know, they didn't know my skills or experience.
I went along with it, keeping positive, trying not to get too down about the whole experience. In the afternoon I helped Lizzy do some washes, shadowing and a bit of spatter with the spray gun on some of the doors for Onegin.

One of the workshops...

On Tuesday Mark asked if I wanted to do another drawing as there wasn't much more production work that required an extra pair of hands. I asked if I could do a painting instead as I hoped to kill two birds with one stone and make a start on my negotiated project and hoped that i would get some good guidance and help from all the talented people that worked at the Opera House. Mark agreed and I spent a couple of hours researching what image I wanted to do. I ended up choosing a Klimt and was given a huge piece of beautiful new canvas to work on!
I stared drawing up my image and again was pretty much left to my own devices. On Wednesday I started painting and made quite a bit of progress....I thought. Emma came down and we had a look through my portfolio. It was really good to get a professional in the industry's input....even if it did make me feel a little down. I know i haven't done much outside work, although to be fair i've done as much as I can with the time i've had! It was good to have her tell me what she would be looking for from a portfolio and gave me some ideas of how I can improve mine over time. I know my drawing is probably one of my weakest points, and Emma did point this out to me and recommended that I start taking night classes....I do need to improve and I am definitely going to work on my drawing skills and try and do a lot more sketches, just set aside times during the week to do them.
On Thursday I set about doing my painting again until Mike (who used to be the head scenic artist for the opera house and who is now retired but helps out freelance from time to time) came and told me that Emma had asked him to come and give me some advice/guidance on my painting. I was quite happy about this but also a little annoyed that I was only getting this help on my second last day...

Mike was an interesting character...I was ill and hadn't been sleeping so I was probably a bit more emotional than usual but his words were pretty harsh and a few of the things he said did almost bring me to tears especially as he didn't know anything about me. But, after listening to him and realising that he was right and that I should really use this opportunity to work with someone like him and take something out of it, I let him paint away the work id spent the last 2 days doing...

Mike wanted me to do my painting in an impressionist style which I was more than happy to do as I hadn't done anything like that before. The style was very different and it was definitely out my comfort zone but I got into it and actually quite enjoyed doing it and loved the colours I was creating. Mike came and went giving me advice and criticism, I decided to take all the negative things he said with a pinch of salt. I left on Thursday night feeling a little down. I decided to take a trip to the national portrait gallery to get some inspiration. I just had a quick browse as I was supposed to be going to a show with one of the guys I was living with. When I met him I was still not in the best of moods so we skipped the theatre and he took me out for dinner instead so I could rant to him about my horrible day and he could cheer me up.

 

On Friday I was quite glad it was my last day...Although I was also enjoying getting some guidance and advice and help with my painting. Friday was also the day of the snow...the snow that poor little London cannot handle. It always makes me laugh that this weather that we get every year always causes such a fuss in London and transport just shuts down. Everyone had one eye on the window waiting for the snow to start. To be fair we were in the middle of nowhere and I did not want to spend my last weekend in London stuck in the middle of Essex. I made some more progress on the portrait and Mike even gave me a backhanded compliment saying that "it looks better than i expected it to look" so that was...nice?... Come 3 o'clock I was told that the trains back to London were getting funny and that i should probably think about heading home. It was a bit of a rush in the end as I was offered a lift to the station so had to quickly grab all my stuff, get changed and run away. I didnt even really get a proper chance to say bye to everyone which was a shame.

The paint shop!

Although my work placement wasn't what I expected it to be I am looking at the positives. It was an amazing experience to be able to spend two weeks there and see the amazingly detailed work they produce. It made me realise that If I ever want to work somewhere as big as the Opera House I have a lot of work to do. I need to improve my drawing skills and take more time to be precise rather than wanting to churn out more and more projects. I need to choose more detailed paintings to do so that my portfolio has a wow factor rather than it just being another one to add to the pile.
I really enjoyed my time in London and I think that I learnt that somewhere like the Opera House isn't for me. It had a very obvious hierarchy which I didn't like. I think I would much prefer to work somewhere smaller where maybe the work isn't quite as tight and perfect as somewhere as renowned as the Opera house. I think i work better in a smaller team, like the lyceum, I think there was too much competition with the 15 or so scenic artists they had in London. I did learn a lot about my time in London and I know what I need to work on to improve myself :)