Grandma, what great big illustrations you have.

Eleven Syracuse University graduate students and their illustration professors Robert Dacey and Scott Holdredge created the set designs for Little Red Riding Hood. The show was the first ever collaboration between the Syracuse Opera and the Everson Museum of Art.

Holdredge said he personally reached out to the Syracuse Opera and brought up the idea to have the illustration students participate in some aspect of the performance. Students were given the opportunity to show off the projects they worked on in class to a wide audience, including small children.

“In my years at schooling, I was able to not only work on projects in class, but outside of class as well,” Holdredge said. “So I am hoping to give back to the students in this way.”

The second and final showing of the opera will take place Saturday at noon at the Everson Museum of Art. The show will also feature opportunities for families in attendance to make arts and crafts before they watch the performance of Little Red Riding Hood.

The illustration students were able to design and create the backgrounds on their own accord. They created what they believed best showcased the story of Little Red Riding Hood using cutout paper designs to construct their work.

“What’s cool about the space is that it is not a traditional stage. The auditorium is just a big white box,” Holdredge said. “A 25 by 40 foot area is what constitutes the stage space.”

Holdredge added that because the stage was designed to project large visuals on the wall, the space provided the perfect opportunity to showcase the many illustrations of the students.

Joe Murphy, a second-year gradate student in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, is an illustration student in Holdredge’s class and participated in the project. Murphy said the students were mainly asked to design the background of the opera’s set.

Murphy said he was specifically assigned to illustrate the floor landscapes and scenery. When the idea was first presented to the class, he took a short vacation to Maine for creative inspiration.

“There I focused on painting life drawings,” Murphy said. “This mini vacation turned out to be beneficial for me and a good reference for the project, just being able to sit outside and draw nature.”

Douglas Kinney Frost, the producing and artistic director at Syracuse Opera, said the idea behind the opera and the creative illustrations was for children in the Syracuse community to be able to immerse themselves in the creative arts in new ways.

Said Frost: “I want the children to leave and have had a creative experience.”

Published on October 15, 2014 at 12:04 am

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