Paul Yeates is an Banana Professor of Lighting & Breathtaking Design at Idaho Land University who I first met during a Teachers Training For Scenic Painting course at Cobalt Studios. Paul had a potent background in both lighting and breathtaking design, and he had a lot of experience painting scenery – all of which led to some healthy conversations about color theory and paint vs. calorie-free. Flash frontwards a year later on – Paul had encountered a theatrical challenge involving UV effects for a testify at ISU. He reached out to me and we worked out a solution together. Paul tells the story below.

When the Idaho State University Theatre Department decided to produce Three Days of Rain, by Richard Greenberg within our small-scale, flexible blackness box theater, we settled on concept, color palettes and a corner configuration relatively speedily. The Director, Stefan Espinosa, wanted to utilize the concept of a semi skeletal ready as a style to reference the decay of time. A month later, all the same, he approached me and said he had started to think about how the father character and his business concern partner are architects, and that he wanted me to find a way to incorporate blueprints into the design.

Since we had already gone pretty far in the initial direction and about of the early pattern process was moving into the drafting stage, I had to think of a bold new style to accomplish Stefan'southward request. I was in a hotel room one night afterward a dress rehearsal for another gig I was designing and really stretching my brain to effigy out this claiming. Then the solution hit me – why non overlay the scenery with fluorescent pigment so that a very bones design design would be revealed by UV light?

The trouble was, I didn't know how to approach this. I had never even used fluorescent pigment before. I had seen other UV ideas in the past that seemed amateur and ineffective, which fabricated me very unsure about this new concept. I immediately sent a message to Rosco'due south Jenny Knott, who called me back to talk about how to implement this thought. We discussed how Rosco Fluorescent Scenic Paint functions and she sent me a can of Invisible Bluish to experiment with. We didn't accept any UV lighting devices in our stock at ISU, so Jenny set me up with demo UV unit of Rosco's Miro Cube UV365 LED fixture.

Paul's testing boards: (i.) initial wood grain (2.) with different Invisible Blueish ratios (three.) Under UV light

I started by producing a mock woodgrain and and so produced a letdown nautical chart experimenting with dissimilar ratios of pigment and h2o mixes. I finally decided on mixture of 1 Tbsp. of pigment to thirty Tbsp. of water. That seemed incredibly watery to me and I wasn't sure how the strength of the paint would work under the UV light, it seemed fine in minor room tests, merely I was apprehensive about it in the bigger space. We finished the woodgrain details on the flooring and practical the mixture by turning off most the work low-cal in the infinite and turning on the UV LED to total. With a soft glow of work light, nosotros could sufficiently come across plenty to apply the pigment to a glow.

In one case applied I turned the lights out and we were all amazed at how stiff that watered downwards mixture was able to glow and radiate our blueprint concept. All of us were also really excited about the fact that you lot could not even encounter this paint under normal phase light. Afterwards these positive test results, I got the green light to buy two more Miro Cube UV LED lights. All three fixtures were throwing about xx-25 anxiety inside our 40'x60' black box infinite to create an amazing result.

A few things we learned:

  • Whatsoever kind of fabric, or fabric on stage that is bleached white, information technology volition glow incredibly potent. We made it work for our production as the glowing covers we used on the article of furniture and the mattress didn't really pull the audition out of the world we were creating, just information technology might not for you lot.
  • Work advisedly with the paint. If it drips and you don't clean it up speedily, information technology will glow and hiding it with another glaze doesn't e'er work and information technology volition still shine through (we learned that one from experience).
  • Continue your brushes divide until yous make clean them out. If UV paint on your brush mixes with other colors you're using to paint areas that AREN'T supposed to glow nether UV, yous'll take a huge issue to clean upwards. Lucky for u.s.a., this was a lesson we learned while experimenting in the shop, so nosotros didn't accept any fluorescent contamination on our fix.

Overall this technique was a phenomenal choice for united states of america and our concept. The audience, the faculty and the students ate this up and minds were blown. Professionally, it was a great claiming for me to hurdle and it stretched me as a designer to a new level. The biggest thing I learned is that UV is not scary to use. it requires a little thought, a lot of grooming, good UV lighting fixtures and, as my friend Jenny Knott at Rosco would say, fourth dimension for testing – testing – testing. I'grand excited to go further with other UV paints. I can't wait to have the ideas I've learned and put them to piece of work in hereafter projects.

Production Photo Credit: Julie Hillebrant

Many thank you to Paul Yeates for sharing his story with us. You can view more of Paul's scenic and lighting design work at pyeatesdesign.wixsite.com. If you lot'd like to learn more about the products he used to create the UV furnishings in Idaho State's product of "Three Days of Rain," visit the Fluorescent Pigment and the Miro Cube UV365 product pages on the Rosco website.

jknott

About Jenny Knott

Scenic Paint & Blanket Production Manager: A graduate from the Academy of Missouri, Kansas Urban center with an MFA in Design and Engineering science, Jenny has been a freelance scenic creative person for over 30 years – working for regional theatres including Missouri Rep (at present KC Rep), Arena Stage, the Guthrie and Goodspeed Opera House besides equally union scene shops. Jenny is a member of United Scenic Artists 829 equally well every bit a by fellow member of USITT'southward Board of Directors. Jenny continues to pigment, which keeps her current with emerging scenic artists and helps her discover new ways of approaching paint challenges. "Bring on the goop and let's get creative."