Alright, what your professor is looking for is something that most scenic artists have done at one time or another. What you do is you
purchase the linoleum sheet, sketch out your brick
pattern, and then cut out the individual bricks. Some people will also sandwich the edges of the linoleum in 1x1 so that it doesn't buckle as you work on it. The reason for linoleum is so that your
stencil doesn't adhere to the surface you are working on. It is also thin enough as to not prevent paint from fully filling the
stencil. I've also used creaft aper coated in a poly to avoid the buckling problem.
Once you have your
stencil built, you'll want to do a mortar
base. Preferably either a solid or a two color blend. Then
lay down a
spatter of both a highlight and lowlight. Essentially these would be darker and lighter than your
base. You'll want this to dry before you start your stenciling. As you begin your stenciling, use organic sponges to apply the brick colors, or use dark glazes over top of your mortar
base. Either way you'll want to use multiple colors, even if they are minimally different. This gives texture to your bricks. Finally, once your brick colors are done, go back in with highlights and shadows and a
bit of spattering over the entire
unit.
If I can find copies of a
unit we did last year I'll add them to this post. Generally these bricks can look fairly realistic when done well and when viewed from a general
proscenium audience distance. If done for a
black box theatre, or something more intimate, you may want to go with true three dimensional bricks, of which one way of doing it was posted here.