Dido and Aeneas | revardart

DIDO AND AENEAS - JUILLIARD 2019

Set for Dido and Aeneas, designed by Grace Laubacher at the Juilliard School. Charged by Jenny Stanjeski, Assistant Charge David Blaakman, scenic apprentices myself (Delia Revard) and Jacob Caire.

Carving Dido Table

This set ultimately was shipped overseas, so great care was taken in the process to make the set as sturdy as possible. This meant multiple layers, starting with carving the foam.

Dido Beginning Stages

Dido Process

After the carving was done, the multiple layers of coating started. First was plasterweld, then jaxsan, followed by a mixture of Aquaresin and corn cob (for texture and hardiness). This is the table with all foam covered in jaxsan (the yellow brown color), and the beginnings of the aquaresin stage (the darker brown patches). These texture layers were tinted in case a chip DID somehow happen, it wouldn't be glaring white bead foam.

Texture Detail

Once the hard coat was finished, we went in with more jaxsan "shmears" to add more texture and bring out the dimension we had carved in earlier in the process.

First Glazes on Table

After the texturing and hard coating was finished on the foam, I continued application of jaxsan in "shmears" to create a mottled underlayer to then glaze over with raw umber and burnt sienna tones - focusing raw umber on the "sea" sections of the tabletop map, and burnt sienna on the "land" sections.

Gold Texture Detail

To bring out the metallic gold of this table, we used variegated gold leaf, rolling on the glue with texture rollers so we were just adding glints of shine and texture. More blue toned variegated gold leaf was used in the "sea" sections of the map, and red in the "land" sections.