“No words can tell the artist exactly what colours he shold use, for everything depends on the mixture of colours. The best plan for learning this part of the work is to get an old piece of scenery and try to copy it. At the same time the learner should make a note of the colours that have been used to produce such and effect. The artist must remember the effect he has to produce must not be that which he sees himself, bt that which the scenery will present when hung up and shown by artificial lights.”
Excerpt from Van Dyke Browne’s “Secrets of Scene Painting and Stage Effects” (1900, page 17)
I was trained how to painted by copying both small-scale renderings (scenic designs), fine art pieces, and extant scenery. This was the method taught by Prof. Emeritus Lance Brockman at the University of Minnesota. Unfortunately, this is no longer a priority or critical aspect of the program. For me, it was crucial as a scenic artist to understand both rendering techniques (small-scale) and scenic art techniques (large-scale). The last drop that I painted for the University of Minnesota just a few years back was to replicate a historical rendering in the scenery collection database. Here is a link for this site https://umedia.lib.umn.edu/scenicsearch
Examples below are the original sketch and my interpretation on a 12′ x 18′ scale. I used premix, not dry pigment.
Color Rendering from Scenery Collection at the University of Minnesota
