Tacks, nails
Screws
Dyes
Gesso
Glue (flake and liquid)
Oil colors
Water colors by the pound
Suppose that you belong to the first group. Take your plan and place it before you. For the back drop, wall, and wing, you may use beaver board, heavy paper, canvas, or muslin stiffened by a thin coat of boiled starch. Now go to your stage and measure the height and width of the back drop and the wing frames. Then cut out the back drop and wing from the material you have chosen. Place these in their positions on the stage. Take a piece of charcoal, or soft lead pencil, and lightly sketch your design onto the back drop and wing. Now step back, at least ten feet, in order to see if your arrangement, perspective, and scale are correct. You may find that your distant tower is too large or too small, or that your trees are too small or too tall, or that your arrangement is not according to your well-worked-out plan. Make your corrections. Then take the back drop and wing from the stage, and lay them flat on desks or tables. With your scenery in this position carefully complete your sketch.
Now take a piece of white chalk and draw on the stage floor the ground plan. If the tower nearest the front is made large, and the one farther away slightly smaller, you will get the effect of distance. You will observe that the larger tower is not round, although it appears so to the audience. By making it flat at the back, you gain floor space for the marionettes that may be waiting to go on the stage. The bases and tops of these towers are of wood; the sides are of strips of wood which serve as a foundation for the burlap cover. The armorer’s shop, too, may be made of wood and beaver board. The effect of stone may be produced by covering the surface of these towers, walls, and shop with a mixture of sand and gesso.
Colors. When you are ready to paint the scenery, you can use ordinary house paints, showcard colors, or water colors. House paints are ready mixed. Water colors are practical and inexpensive when bought in powder form, but when you use them you should add several tablespoonfuls of a fixative made from flake glue dissolved in water. Various kinds of showcard colors are clear and pure and very easy to use, but they are comparatively expensive. If you cannot afford many colors buy red, yellow, dark blue, and white. By combining them you can get a wide range of colors. If you are not limited in the amount you can spend, add to your list orange, light green, light blue, mauve, and magenta.