[CHAPTER XXIV]
SCENERY, PROPERTIES, AND MECHANICAL EFFECTS
Scenery for a miniature theatre will be made in much the same manner as the small drops and wings a scenic artist prepares of each scene of a play, before he commences work upon the large canvasses. Any handy boy will find it an easy matter to prepare his scenery, as it does not require a knowledge of drawing so much as it does the knack of copying scenes from pictures, and the proper placing of the various wings and drops. Several simple suggestions for water, field, street, and interior scenes, with sketches of the drops and wings necessary to complete them, have been placed on the following pages of this chapter with a view to helping you with your first attempts at making scenery. By the time you have made some of these you will have had enough practice in the work to devise other designs and work up the details more elaborately. With a little shifting of drops and wings, or substituting one for another, the appearance of the scene can be sufficiently changed to make it as good as an entirely new setting. Several examples of this will be found among the illustrations.
For materials, you will require some large pieces of paper, several sheets of cardboard, a box of colored chalks, a pair of shears, and a pot of paste—add to this a bunch of laths with which to make the frames, and some nails, screws, and tacks for fastenings. The back of wall-paper presents an excellent surface for chalks, and several rolls will cost you but a few cents, as you can purchase old-style patterns. Suit and shoe boxes will furnish the necessary cardboard.
Fig. 325.—Drop for Ocean Scene.