Category: making stuff
Process video of an ink drawing
I made a drawing of Tim last night and filmed the process. In retrospect, I should have lit the drawing from the left to minimize the shadow cast from my hand… I’m still learning.
making a little watercolor square
This is how I make one of my little watercolor square paintings, from start to finish. (at 8x speed)
You don’t need fancy equipment to photograph paintings
Today we photographed some new paintings. Our technique is straight-forward and delivers good results. We shoot outside on overcast days or in indirect light, so the sun doesn’t shine on the painting and no shadows are cast across it. We prefer shooting outside because it is more straight forward than shooting with artificial light. Shooting outside in indirect light means that the light is soft and even across the painting and there are no “hot spots” or glare off the more reflective areas of the painting.
We use a Canon 20D SLR camera and a 35mm lens with a remote so there is no camera shake when shooting each image. As you can see the painting is propped up on a crate so that it is as close to vertical as possible. The trickiest part is adjusting the camera so that it is pointing perpendicular to the painting. This means adjusting the tripod so the camera sensor is parallel to the painting surface.
We then use an 18% grey card to check exposure, and an X-rite Color Checker Classic color chart for color correcting purposes in post. Each painting is photographed with the color chart on it before shooting the painting, so that color correction can be done more easily. We know that the color is accurate on our monitor because we calibrate it using X-rite i1Display Pro colorimeter.
We use photoshop to crop and color correct. I save the camera raw files, but primarily use TIFF’s and JPG’s for prints, web, and promotional materials.
So obviously we are using some specialized equipment, but we aren’t spending a fortune to do this professionally, and we get high quality digital images as a record of my work.
Are you looking for art and creativity coaching? I can help you. Find all the info HERE.
Become a Patron of the Arts!
I just joined Patreon, a site that allows you to make microdonations to artists. Patreon is a simple way for you to contribute to my work each month, and get great rewards in return. Patrons will have access to patron-only content like studio visit videos, insight into my practice, materials and processes. There are other rewards for varying levels of support. Check it out here.
If you’d like to find out more, here’s an article about the impact of making regular microdonations to artists here.
Thanks for reading!
Recent Paintings
I’ve added recent paintings completed since last summer to my paintings page.
Project 27
I am digging the grid right now, and after project 22, when I first used the grid with the watercolor enso-like forms, I wanted to work a little bigger. This one is 28cm square, divided into 7cm squares. I’m still going with the cobalt blue and yellow ochre greenish gray here, as I did the two previous days.
Project 26
I am really intrigued by this cobalt blue and yellow ochre mixture I used in yesterday’s enso, so today I made three using the same two colors.
Project 25
Today’s enso.
Project 24
I only brought a small watercolor kit with me to Australia, and I’ve been missing working more thickly with paint. (I miss my oils, but they are packed away in our storage unit in Philly.) So I got a few tubes of gouache paint since it doesn’t require any specific mediums and is very immediate. It’s been a long long time since I used gouache, so on Saturday I played around with a few colors to see how the paint behaves. Exciting stuff. I can use it almost as transparently as watercolor, build up quasi opaque layers, use it thickly (but not too much or it risks cracking), subsequent layers of paint can “pick up” color below (this can be a disadvantage too), and colors can run and bleed similarly to watercolor. Since I was just tooling around on a piece of paper, I wasn’t expecting to make anything in particular, and the color reflected this; it was pretty awful! On Sunday, I decided I’d try to make something of it though. Using the paint’s opaque qualities to work additively I covered up and unified some the marks. I folded and cut it into a book — why not? — and then worked on each page, sometimes moving back and forth between pages. I finished with some ink drawing as well. While the palette is a little odd for me, I think the final piece is kind of interesting, even if just as an experiment! Here it is, page by page:
