Tag Archives: Costume Classes

Classes, Diablo Valley College, Distance Education, Free Stuff, Workshops and Presentations

Free DISTANCE EDUCATION RESOURCES FOR COSTUME & MAKEUP CLASSES

March 31, 2020 tara@costumes.org

I, like nearly everyone teaching in the US, and many around the world, started switching my classes in mid (Spring 2020) semester from face to face classes to trying to make them distance learning classes without much warning. Costume and Makeup classes in theatre are rather spectacularly ill suited to this sort of conversion. However, I have a bit more resources built up because I have flirted with Distance Education before. And I have been making all I can for my own classes as fast as I can. So, what follows are links to a bunch of hopefully useful stuff for you to use in your newly online costume and makeup classes:

Video Lessons for Teaching Makeup Class (full semester of how-tos)

I also maintain Multiple YouTube playlists for my own classes of good videos for typical Makeup class projects like Age, Animal, Kabuki, Drag, FX etc. plus tutorials for dark, medium and light skin tones, makeup videos in Spanish, etc, so students can easily find a variety of tutorials to help them learn what they need to know. You can just surf through these ready-made compilations and pick the videos you want to embed in your class homework pages.

More About Drama 112 Stage Makeup, Spring & Fall, Diablo Valley College

My Stage Makeup class pages in the Canvas Learning system can be found and auto-uploaded to your Canvas shell in their entirety on Canvas Commons, but are also mirrored here at STAGE MAKEUP CLASS PAGES in case you are using a different system than Canvas. You can copy and paste bits or all of this into your system and spare yourself the extra work.

COSTUME CLASS

Conveniently, I made a free textbook in 2009 for my Costume Class which covers both Costume Design and Costume Construction which is full color downloadable and printable. It has a bunch of How-To sections that can be broken out into take home class projects. I have also made a lot of class how tos and other handouts you can send to your distance ed students:

This was a handout and video I made for the face to face class in Spring 2020 semester so I could split the class into two rotating groups so only half the class would be sewing at once while the other got how tos and history from Youtube and me to prep them for the face to face sewing/drawing/costume crafts session for their next class.

Updated and Improved Gathered Rehearsal Skirt Instructions-2021!Download

Easy-Gathered-Rehearsal-Cape-with-Pictures-Download

You can also see here how I put together a Playlist of existing Youtube videos plus made a bunch of short connecting videos for my students to show them in the first week of the 2020 lockdown: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNQBavWhrKQxqAYAoW50eGOJ3JLyb3zch

Here is a video I made that will go into an upcoming week of class we spend on doing stuff with cheap and easy thermoplastics for costuming

This is a substitute for the buckram and hat wire millinery tutorial in the face 2 face class, because while we are on lockdown students can buy what they need for just a few $ at Dollar Tree and make this at home. There is also a step by step tutorial for making a Pool Noodle Marie Antoinette Wig:

Marie Antoinette Pool Noodle Wig Project Page

See also the PDF handout 2015-hot-glue-notes

More PDF Handouts you can use for your Costume Classes:

One-Hour-Dress-Diagrams-Sp-2021 Download

As you can see above I also have posted the PDF handouts for most of my conference presentations which you can use as well:

Distressing-Matters-GBACG-workshop-Feb-2020

This presentation I converted into another Youtube Video for my class to use to learn how to Distress costumes at home after Spring break 2020:

I also broke out a section of that textbook with the parts that relate to Distressing to make another PDF handout: Spray-Dyeing-Jesus-and-Other-Distressing-Thoughts-excerpt

Drama 113 Costume Design, Spring, Diablo Valley College

I will keep posting stuff here as I create or resurrect it from my old Costumer’s Manifesto site…

Crafts, Diablo Valley College, Sewing

Easy Gathered Rehearsal Skirt

July 5, 2018 tara@costumes.org

You need:

3 yards of cotton fabric 36” wide or more
A pencil or chalk
1 yard of3/4″ elastic
2 large safety pins
A needle and thread or Thread and Sewing Machine
2yds of ribbon
Scissors or snips

Instructions continued below

Click here for a printable 4 page PDF of these instructions for an “Easy Gathered Rehearsal Skirt with Pictures” as shown above

Take your 3 yards of fabric and sew the two ends of the wrong side of the fabric together in a big tube with a straight stitch going parallel to the raw edges by 3/8″ and going from one selvedge to 2.5″ below the other selvedge.

2.Press open the seam, then press it into a fold with the raw edge inside, and the seam stitching on the edge.

3. Sew the seam again, this time right side together with a line of stitching 5/8″ parallel to the first seam. You have just made a French Seam which is very strong, even if you sewed it by hand with 3/16″ stitches!

4. Press the little 2.5″ bit of fabric at top of the seam open, and tuck the seam allowance under itself and stitch the seam allowances so they will stay open.

5. Fold the top selvedge over by 1.5″ with wrong sides together, and press flat. Sew this flap into a 1″ waistband tube for elastic and ribbon.

6. Measure the distance from your natural waist to the floor and subtract the amount you want it raised from the floor (like 2” or 4″) this is your Waist to Hem

Waist to Floor – Distance off floor = Waist to Hem

7. Apply the Waist to Hem measure number to the skirt. Measure from the bottom of the waistband casing down towards the selvedge, mark with chalk or pencil every 6 inches or so. Fold the hem in on that line and press.

8. Sew this hem up by hand or machine with a large (and easy to remove) stitch that can be altered for future wearers

9. Cut the two yards of ribbon into two 1-yard sections. Depending on desired size, cut 24″ of the elastic for a small woman, 30″ for a medium woman, or 36 for a large woman, you can use larger amounts for XXL folks, and smaller ones for children, generally 3-5″ less than the waist measure is a good amount.

10. Sew the two pieces of ribbon to the two ends of the elastic.

11. Attach the two safety pins to the two far ends of ribbon. Fasten one pin to the French seam allowance at top, and push the other end through the waistband tube at the top of the skirt till you have ribbon coming out at both sides of the tube.

12. Get the center of the elastic to stick in the center of the waistband tube, and do a little bit of hand stitching to fix it there at the center. Pull more of the ribbon out at both ends and try it on.

13. Remove the safety pins and cut the ends of the ribbon at a sharp pointed angle to reduce unraveling. Tie the ribbons into a bow to adjust the snugness of the waist.