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.

Waiting for paint to dry

This is the chair that I started some work on this past week. This is a photo I took of it after cleaning it and doing a bit of sanding.

Here it is with some bright yellow paint and aqua blue on the legs. My Grandson Dennis thought silver would be cool for the back and so the back is now silver.

I did most of this with spray paint, it is easy and very fast. I think the seat may end up white and I may put hand painted designs all over it. I may glue stuff to it too. I guess I never really plan it out but just go with what comes to mind.

Some chairs I don't bother doing anything with. I found an old cracked chair that had been refinished so many times that I couldn't do much with it. I decided to keep it and make it my Christmas chair:

It sure is fun and different.

Anyway. Charlie and I did some work on moving stock tanks and cleaning them, then I checked on the silver paint. Not quite dry.
So I tied Charlie up to the bench on the porch and he observed as I messed around with some flowers.

I picked peonies and some Japanese irises and took the old daisies from the house and set them on a piece of wood on top of my 'spool' table.

I came up with these photos.

The paint dried and I realized that I wasn't sure what my next step was for colors or design.
I put the chair aside and enjoyed some quiet time reading a book while Charlie napped.

Still Life on the Cheap

This is the spare bedroom. In the upper left corner is a fold up futon type bed. There is my basket of odd toys and other items.
The window is west facing and it lets in diffused light on cloudy days. I have black curtains on it for when the light is harsh, or I want to do some shots with a black backround.
On the floor is Charlie who is playing with an antler shed I found a few years ago.
I decided it was easier to have him underfoot than to having him upset at being in his crate while Rich was napping.
I collect old recycled things like the green bottle. In the summer I use old bottles and jars to put flowers in. They are my vases.

I put some Christmas lights in the bottle.

I played around with the two branches of fake pine.

It wasn't coming out exactly how I imagined it.

So I kept messing with it and decided to work some editing magic.

That was closer to what I wanted, but not anything that was super stellar

I gave things a rest and decided to go back later.
Note, the room is sort of a mess with things tossed all over.
Rich was awake and he and Charlie were watching Netflix, so I decided to try out some other ideas.

Colored pencils. Well, there you go. I just held them up in my hand and took a shot.
I worked with some ideas after the fact.

Still not anything I'd 'write' home about.

So back to the drawing board.

My favorite cracked cup.

Ahhhh....nope.

I liked this, a straight 'down' shot. The cup, the saucer and the little pitcher were all purchased for about a dollar at the flea market. The pages are from my pencil coloring book.
Nice...but...
I really wanted a different look and feel.

Edited with a preset for Vintage colors and a slightly white vignette.

This one I could live with.

~~ These are things I do when I can't get out to go hiking. I was waiting on more phone calls and watching the snow fall.

Still Life while the winds blow!

If you think I have a fancy studio for some of my still life work. Think again.

I do have a room now that I can gather my stuff together and leave it while I get distracted for something like, um, let's say, doing chores, making supper, or going hiking.

My go to backdrops are made out of simple cardboard, an old tablecloth, an old rug, and sometimes some velvet scraps I've had in my sewing stuff.

I have a bowl of beads and old fake pearl necklaces and other items that I toss into the mix. I bought a mix of flowers at Walmart that was a bit past its prime. The rose petals began to fall from the flower and I thought the petals were a perfect addition to what I was working on.

I have done most of my 'work' using the existing light from the bedroom window. On cloudy days the light is very subdued and on sunny days it is harsh in the afternoon.
I used a fold up chair and some black velvet for one shot. I leaned some black cardboard up so the pale wall wouldn't show when shooting the rose petals.
After I was done I realized I didn't have the perfect focus so this one really didn't make the 'cut'.

But the concept was nice. I did use some heavy handed editing to remove the dust and grey portions of velvet that showed up in the photo. I used the Perfect Brush in ON1RAW to help with that. What a handy and quick tool it is.

Before brushing...

Next time I try this I would like to have everything in much better focus.

I did end up with a very nice shot however after trying a few other things.

And....

Edited version below with texture from an abandoned building.

Arranging Still Life is still a mystery to me sometimes and I often don't spend a lot of time making an arrangement. It seems to work better if I don't think about it too hard.

So while the wicked winds blew outside, I was in the spare room playing with items.

My husband says I have too much time on my hands. He may be right this week as I was off for his surgery that got cancelled. However I did sell a piece of artwork so I guess it wasn't a complete waste of time.

And then there is my small skull collection...
Opossum in the middle and ground hogs on the outside.

Can't go out to play so...

So I thought I'd get out the bathroom mirror that I saved for whatever reason when the guys gutted the bathroom.

I thought it would be fun to use them this winter in some of my Still Life work.
Again, this was an easy set up. I put the mirror down on top of a plastic tote and then simply began to arrange things around.

The egg was a wild idea. Yes, it is a raw egg and no, there was nothing holding it in place. It looks like the egg-s are suspended.
Rich wasn't feeling good so instead of taking the hike at the Kickapoo Reserve to see the unfinished dam, I decided to stick around the house.

I got out some of my cups, rings, and baubles and arranged them in different manners. I didn't use any other light than that which came in from the window behind me.

I would love to do some light experiments soon though.

I used old necklaces and other items I have in my 'junk' box. I used a doily I found at the flea market as a backdrop along with an old white table cloth.
The silver rings and ribbon came from a wedding invitation that my daughter in law made. Yes I sometimes keep odd things.

And not all are keepers. The photos were okay, but didn't really have any zip or WOW factor.

And then I did this.
And it made it worth it.

I was happy that I stayed inside and didn't go out ... to play.

It looks better through the lens...

See?
This is the spare bedroom now. And I thought I'd take a photo of how I set things up.
I had to use a tripod because the day was so overcast and gloomy that very little light was coming in the west window.

But the result turned out well.

Gourds and rocks on an old shipping box from Rock Falls, ILL USA!

Here is a shot of the room as a mess. When I get in the 'creative' mood, things are dropped all over as I try things out.

I was doing a very nice family/memory/things of the past photo and decided to grab a dinosaur and use the pearls...

Sometimes silliness wins the day.

However I did complete the serious shot I had been thinking about.

The elements are a photo of Rich's father's brothers and sisters. A doily, pearls, and a page from my Grandmother Pearl's diary.

This morning I went out to the woods and found that the rapid temperature change had done some neat things. I detoured with my blaze orange on from the trail camera to a place further downstream.

Well I had no tripod and the light was not very good.
So I put the camera down and steadied it with rocks. I put the timer on a 2 second delay and shot the ice and water.

I think it worked well. Improvising is a good thing.

I then wanted to see it as it was ... cold. So I made it black and white.

Programs used SilverEfexPro [free for download].

So there you have it.
I also used ON1 for editing.