Saturday, April 22, 2023

Rainy day fun with Still Life

 

Teddy Bear Garden Club
Meeting


With two days of darkness and dreariness filled with rain and well, gloom...I decided to mess around with --- toys of all things! Surprise!

I had to be quiet because the other half was Mr. Sleepy Head. I did chores of course along with transplanting Bee Balm plants that were emerging. They are so hardy and tough. I knew with the rain, it might be a good time to move things [in between showers].


I decided to clean up my old camera and hired a crew to do that while I swept the house for Charlie hair.


Kidding of course. I decided to take advantage of the low light coming in from the east and south windows. It wasn't harsh, but perfect for Still Life.


You don't need much room to 'make' a scene.

Clean up Crew


What it looked like before I put up a tea towel...


"Oh no Chuck, we need some eye drops! Can
you get the top off?"


These are HO Scale pieces and they don't like to stand up on their own very well. Viola! Some Elmer's Glue works very well. This wipes off easily and works wonders! It goes on purple and fades to clear.

It is amazing what happens to a creative person when she gets bored from being quiet around the house. 


I got out the kid blocks and a little light and set them up on my 'play' table.  For special effects I put the camera on a timer and simply used a face mister for fog and water in a spray bottle for rain.


With almost no edits, I got these photos of this little Lego figure:

Pre-edit. 


Upped the blacks and....decreased
the color...


I even tried making Frank the Trooper float, and that failed miserably. I used a fishing line to suspend him and tried the following. He kept swinging around and nothing worked out for me.


I went back to what worked before and added a filter to the light.

Original:


Final:


I added some contrast and a used brush that comes with ON1. It is supposed to be a comet, but I thought it looked like a blast from a blast. The 'rain' is from the spritzer.


Friday morning we had sunlight! It was cold and windy...but Charlie and I adventured down into the valley to the Big Spring.

More about that...
later.

Today it is snowing again.

thhhhppptttptptp...ffffttt.

6 comments:

  1. Nice series. Those tiny guys are great! Where are the females ;) Maybe you could add some hair hanging out of a hard hat?

    Our weather sure has been less than desirable this week. We've been getting out walks in between the thunderstorms and high winds. I watch our horses. They are more predictable than the weather forecast. When they come barreling up to the shed I know something is about to start brewing. They are never wrong. One boom was so loud that it visibly shook the windows! Glad I was indoors for that one.

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    Replies
    1. The ones in the orange were supposed to be railroad workers and I guess they were all male. Not many details on them at all, but fun to mess with.

      I like the female Lego figures a lot though, they sure are pretty neat.

      Nothing but alternating snow showers and sleet here. I wanted to do fence work! :(

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  2. You are clever! It's dreary and cold but no rain or snow here.

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  3. You went crazy with the toys today. I meant that in a good way. The small people are so tiny. I like how you can set up scenes with the light coming through the window. A lot of fun for us all too.

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  4. I need to find some toys...I think there is a whole bunch upstairs in the train set. Cold here and snow blew around.

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    Replies
    1. Oh boy, can I come over and play? I love messing around with toys but we did that as kids also. We'd set up elaborate scenes on the ping pong table in the basement. We'd try to make our plastic soldiers and toys look as if they were realistically engaged in battle. Building sets with the trains and then running the train over toys to derail it was huge fun.


      Playing takes your stress away because your brain puts all the bad crap away and doesn't let it in while you are playing.

      Delete

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