One Art Leads to Another

by Terri

A little over a year ago, I wrote this post about wishing I were an artist. Through photography, I found a way to express my creativity and that has become my art, both in the taking of the photographs and in the post-processing that made my photos look like paintings. I have had great fun creating art with both Photoshop filters and iPhone apps.

Most of us here at FOL (and possibly many of you) are currently in the yearlong class taught by Kim Klassen called Be Still 52 where we are focusing on still life photography. It is something I hadn’t tried much of before and am thoroughly enjoying it.  However, as I am getting into it, I am finding that I need props and backgrounds for the photos I’m taking.

The first item on my list of coveted props was a painted white tray, the older and more beat up the better. I found a little vintage store not far from me and spent some time wandering around looking for my tray. Unfortunately, this was all I could find:

I did love the shape, size and design of this tray, so I bought it. Right next door was a little shop that sold chalk paint so I decided to take it in there for some advice. They were very helpful and gave me some ideas about how to go about this project as well as helped me pick out the paint.

The great thing about chalk paint is that you don’t have to sand or prep your piece at all. Just make sure it’s free of dust and dirt and you’re ready to go.

Two coats of paint later and a bit of sanding to distress it a little, this is what I ended up with:

And so I continued on and set up a complete “scene” with my new tray:

I’m sure it is a prop I will use often. Lots of fun with only a small amount of invested time and money.

Another thing I had been wanting to try was to create a watercolor background. There are more videos than you can count on YouTube but I found a great one here. After watching it, I went to Michael’s to pick up the needed supplies. I was a little afraid to begin and then I realized that the least expensive part was the watercolor paper and if I messed it up, I could just start over. Here’s my first watercolor background:

I used two colors, both a blue and an aqua and LOTS of water to blend them together. So much fun and it left me feeling like a real artist!  I’m sure I will do more of these in different color combinations.

Summer here is our time of year to be indoors and so Kim’s class and my little “artistic” projects are keeping me creating through the hot months. Do you have any photography projects in the works? We're all about "simplicity" here at FOL this month and would love to see your images depicting the theme in our Flickr gallery. Hope you're all enjoying some lazy summer days!