Photo Breakthrough

There are some days when I feel pretty hopeless - which I'm sure I've mentioned here before. I don't like to keep bringing it up because I don't want to be known as a whiney blogger. However, it's just a fact about me...I often let things overwhelm me, beat me down and I fall into the pit of "woe is me".

But today, I crawled out of the pit for a little while, saw the sun, got some things accomplished and thought I'd better blog about it! A few weeks ago, I told you about a workshop being taught at Artlandish Gallery on product photography (by the lovely and talented Nichelle Lawrence). I didn't really participate in the workshop because I was helping build light boxes for it, but I got to hear some of the helpful tips.

Since then, I've built my own light box, (which is quite cool, if I say so myself), and have been on the hunt for daylight light bulbs. Let me just mention that if you are looking for daylight bulbs and you don't really know what you are doing, don't be distracted by the GE reveal reader bulbs. The pictures on the packaging made me think I was buying the right bulb, or at least a bulb that would work, but I was sadly mistaken. The photos I took with reveal were more of a pinkish color than the normal yellow I've taken in the past.

So today, I walked into Westlake Hardware and decided to actually ask someone for the daylight bulb instead of trying to find it myself. Even after the guy pointed to them and said "they are the ones with the blue on the label", I still almost picked the one with the green label (sometimes I really wonder about myself and my goofy little brain). I happened to have a $5 gift card (I'm on the Ace Rewards Plan), so the bulb only cost under $3. Which is nice, since I've spent about $10 or so pursuing bulbs that were of no help at all.

I came home, screwed in the light bulb (how many artists does it take to screw in a light bulb? It turns out, only one!) and took some photos. I am very pleased with how the photos turned out. No yellow, no pink or any other funky colors. Just fairly clear, normal light. Because I liked my pictures, and because I've made a couple of sales this week, I was motivated to list three new tag sets today. Woo hoo! Maybe next time Nichelle teaches a workshop (hopefully sometime in May), I can listen in on the parts I missed and come up with some cool lighting techniques. Until then, I'm pretty pleased with what I have.

So the two photos above are ones that I hate and ones that I normally take. And these are the ones I'm feeling very proud of today:

I realize I still am no professional, but I feel much better about these product photos. Hopefully, I will stay motivated enough to continue to work on them and not be so easily discouraged. It's fun to have lots of things up in my Etsy shop, but it's not so much fun to work hard and not have good results.

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope wherever you are, Spring is warm and beautiful. It sure is here in Mid Missouri!

Just Popping in to Say "Hi!"

I feel like I've been gone for a very long time, so I'm glad to see that it has only been a couple of weeks since my last post. But since my last post, I lost one of my followers. Apparently, I'm not so entertaining that I can get away with only writing a couple of times a month and keep people coming back! I've fallen far behind on my New Year's goal of posting three times per week. Isn't it weird how your New Year's resolutions can be shot to heck in the matter of a few weeks?

Anyway, things here are going fine. I'm tired, a little depressed (where is that sunshine anyway?), and I'm feeling overwhelmed. However, I know spring and warm weather are just around the corner and I know that I'm going to get to start doing some art again real soon.

Yesterday I attended a workshop at Artlandish Gallery on Product Photography. It was taught by photographer, Nichelle Lawrence. I was actually just helping out, but one of the things I got to do was help build light boxes. If you've ever visited my Etsy shop, you know how much I could benefit from having a light box for my photos (which suck, frankly). Last night and tonight, I spent some time building my own light box and it turned out pretty cool. I just shot a couple of photos using it and here is one of the things I shot:

I painted this dinosaur several months ago. I want to paint a couple of sets of dinos and sell them in my shop but so far I've only gotten one finished. I like the way the photo turned out and I look forward to taking pictures of my other items and playing around with this light box a little more. When my husband saw my light box and looked inside to see this smiling dinosaur he said "He looks pretty happy in there!"

More Block Prints

I've been working on some more block prints. I will be facilitating two workshops at Artlandish Gallery in the next few weeks and even though I'm a little nervous, I'm really looking forward to it. Above are some images I scanned to show the progression of this particular print.

The first picture shows the candle after I did one etching into the linoleum. I think doing some preliminary prints can be very helpful in showing you what other details will make the carving look more interesting. Even though I like the original sketch of the candle, I'm not completely happy with the final print. I think it would have been better to have something in between the second and the last image (but number 3 above is not what I had in mind). I think I should have left more background around the candle like in image two. I may try to do this drawing again, or I may try one of the other sketches I have hiding in my sketchbook.

Thanks for stopping by!