Theatre Arts Professor Channels His Inner Bob Ross
SOMERS – UW-Parkside Theatre Arts Associate Professor Jody Sekas has adapted his scene painting class not just by channeling his inner Bob Ross and showing the students the joy of painting through online videos, but also by going above and beyond by sending them what they need to finish the class.
Theatre Arts Associate Professor Jody Sekas
Sixteen students are currently enrolled in Sekas’ THEA 380 – Scene Painting course, learning scene painting techniques for use in theatre, film, and TV. Their remaining projects were painting faux stone, brick, concrete, and granite; painting several styles of faux wood grain; painting faux marble; and, a final 4’ x 6’ muslin backdrop. Four of those students have elected to share their projects here are: Bianca Gonzalez (Pleasant Prairie, WI), Jenny Bauer (Raymond, WI), Leticia L'Hullier (Oak Creek, WI), and Lynsey Gallagher (Kenosha, WI).
Bianca Gonzalez
Sekas examined what projects were remaining and narrowed down the selection of images his students were going to re-create so they could use a palette consisting of just 13 different paints. He then created kits for each student with all of those different paints and the tools they needed to finish the job: brushes, sponges, spray bottles, charcoal, and empty mixing containers.
Jenny Bauer
Students had been doing their previous projects in the scene shop at Parkside on 4’ x 4’ canvases. Sekas altered the project sizes down by half and provided them with new canvases that could reasonably fit into their cars and homes. He then created a schedule for each of the students to arrive to pick up their kit, ensuring that they would maintain social distancing rules when doing so.
Leticia L'Hullier
Finally, he made a series of tutorial videos for each project using two cameras. After learning to edit with Adobe Premier Pro, he shared the completed videos with the class via a different kind of canvas—namely, Canvas, the learning platform that UW-Parkside use to access course materials. The students are asked to follow along with the videos and upload their project photos when they are finished.
Lynsey Gallagher
One of the course videos can be seen below via the link. Sekas will also be making on appearance on the Thursday, May 14, 2020 episode of The Morning Show on WGTD 91.1 FM, hosted by Greg Berg, to talk about the class. Lynsey Gallagher, a sophomore theatre major at UW-Parkside, will also appear on the show, as well as Brian Gill, of Parkside’s theatre faculty, to talk about teaching stage combat online.