Photographing Art Work

Taking a traditional painting and trying to turn it into a well presented digital image can be tricky. To get to the best representation there is a need to get a good photo of it and do the right editorial work.

In this blog, I'll cover the photography part.

Here are 2 examples (click to view):

Window – It's better to take photos outside, but it was cold during the winter, so I took some photos of my paintings near a window. The biggest problem is that there is a gradient of light, lighter by the window, darker further away.

Shade – Taken outside in the shade. I personally believe that is the closest to the original look of the painting.

Sunlight – Direct sunlight fills the painting with very bright colors, sometimes brighter than the actual colors. If the painting has glossy areas, they will shiny. If there is some texture in the painting, it will cast shadows.

Flash – A big no no. The focus of the light usually in the center, darker around. Glossy areas pick up most of the light and make the painting look as if it is covered in plastic food wrap.

No flash – In rather dark place it will be really hard to get the focus right, most of the times the photos come out very blurry and with a slight color change.

Room light – Most of the room lights have a touch of yellow in them, the yellow can be clearly seen in the photo.

Additional tips:

1. Take photos of your paintings before you varnish them, the gloss is very often hard to deal with.
2. The best time of the day to take photos is around noon, the later it gets, the more yellow – orange the light becomes.
3. Some paintings photograph better in direct sunlight (if there is no gloss or texture), but from my personal experience, the closest colors to my paintings, are in the photos taken in the shade.
4. Take at least 3 photos, there is always a chance for something to go wrong. Look through all the photos and pick the best one.
5. The easiest way to know that the light source is good enough is when your camera is set on auto (flash when needed, no flash when not needed) and it doesn't flash.

Your work deserves a good representation!

I hope it helped..

Can't Be Unseen

Our mind is programed to try to make sense of things.

In this post I want to bring to your attention the potential damage in expressing what you think you see when it comes to an abstract piece of art.

I know I am guilty of it myself. I remember when I was a kid, we had a very interesting abstract painting with a lot of fabric fibers to create the textures and a lot of different colors. To me, it was like a trip to the jungle, I saw a tiger in there, lizards, dogs, cats, every time something different.. But it was all in my imagination, not what the piece was really about or intended to be.

Even not that long ago, I visited a gallery and saw a big piece, which to me looked like a very comical scene of a huge elephant running through a city scape in the night. The title of the painting was “Tyranny of the corner bowl set”, taking that into consideration, one might think it actually had nothing to do with elephants. Looking at that painter's other pieces, the elephant shape kept repeating itself, so it might have been about an elephant after all...

There is the element of a painting being text, and once the artist is done with it, it is an open text for everyone to read the way they want or can read it. So in a way it is out of control.

What I want to talk about, is somewhat different. From a personal point of view I'm not trying to abstract any narrative shapes, and when someone says to me about my piece “hey! There is a cat in there!” I can't not see it and it makes me want to erase it, paint it over, cover it up... make it disappear.

So I believe such things are better to be kept to yourself. In most cases I can easily not even pay any attention and give them the full freedom to see and imagine what they want... But in extreme cases it can be somewhat annoying and it will bug me till I do something about it.

I'm going to give a few examples from my own work that pretty much failed in that aspect.

One of the older ones.. The clown.

When I finished it, my mother said to me “I see a clown in there, look at that big red nose.. oh! And he is sticking out his tongue, what an amusing piece”... What was to me a very interesting use of different shapes in a composition, became a weird face of a clown, and I am not a big fan of clowns.

Deep Rift

Here I was my worst enemy, no one noticed or said anything about it so far... but, I looked at it and saw this yellow fish. I display the painting upside down from how it was originally made, so it won't jump out so much, but I am still very bothered by it. At this point I feel that it is beyond the option to repair since it has so many other areas in it that I love.

Consuming Fire

Sometimes in the early stages, things can still be fixed.

 So in one of the first layers I found him.. Can you see him? Well, I called him the cookie warrior... 

About 4 more layers later, I'm glad to say he is gone. 

So the next time you see something that might have not be intended to be there, think twice before pointing it out... In one of my classes we were forbidden from saying anything of that sort to our fellow students. The painting can mean anything you want to you, see what ever you want in it, but don't always point that out to the painter.

And if you are an abstract painter like me and wish to avoid those "obvious" objects being in your paintings, consult with someone with good imagination before your piece is complete.

Randomness!

Randomness was a very fun project that I began doing for myself, but after created the 3^rd complete image, I really wished them to become posters for sale... and would add a vibrant unique splash of color to any room.

Today I made that wish come true and they are now available on my Zazzle store!

They are set for 20x28” size, but the size can be changed.

I don't usually use this blog for self promotion, but I am really excited about this project and wanted to share.

I would really appreciate if you check them out and like them as much as I do!

Randomness on Zazzle

Different Tools

About a year ago I took one of the most fun classes ever, “Anything but the Brush”, taught by the amazing artist Jeanne Krabbendam. It was very innovative and offered a very stimulating problem solving approach when it comes to painting.

What I have learned became quite a big part of my own art practice and I decided to share some tips with you.

As the class title suggests, we had to create paintings using anything we want/can other than a brush. To get the full experience of this practice, I suggest trying to create narrative painting, aka not abstract. Abstract is very fun and yet quite easy, but it is the innovative thinking that comes from trying to figure out how to paint something representational that can be quite mind blowing.

Here are few examples of possible tools:

 

Brush – just to show how well known and somewhat boring it can be.

 

Hair comb – it creates ridges in paint. I get the simple ones and cut them into desirable sizes, very fun to create textures with.

Spray bottle – I personally love my paint to be very fluid, it's good to make light washes with or just create the flowing effect.

Sponge – I strongly suggest getting different types, after dipping them in paint, they will create different patterns as you press them onto your surface. Try working with it as it is almost dry, or very wet.

Foam Brush – Can be bought in many art stores, basically it is a sponge on a stick.

Spatula – A rubber goodness, can apply very thin layers of paint.

Straw – Blow with in onto the paint and see what you get, I like having different color paints side by side and use the straw to mix them, or quite fluid paint to create a splash like effect.

Chopstick – Or any kind of stick. I used it sometimes to make dots.

Fork – A lot like hair comb, but can also give some fun effect like the 4 dots.

Plastic Knife – Also a lot like hair comb but with smaller teeth, I like it on thick layers of paint.

Palette Knife – In my mind this is one of the ultimate painting tools, many artists paint using only them and I absolutely love the rough look that they creates. In my practice I use them mostly to create thin lines by holding them on the side.

There are many more things out there that I chose not to include, just so you can have the fun in discovering them! But most important, don't forget the best childhood tool of them all...... fingers!!

Enjoy!

Textures

Textures add a 3D element to paintings and give them rich and interesting surface. It's easy to do lovely impasto brush stokes that are visible, but there is no need to waste pigments in paint for that. Acrylics can be mixed with gel mediums and oil with wax. There is also an option to create very dynamic and interesting textures and build a painting on top of that, that is what I usually do.

I made these 4 pieces as a test for making different textures to see what I like working with the most.

I used different binding materials combined with different things and interesting tools to apply it to build up my textures.

Here is a list of everything I used:

Binding materials:

• Modeling paste
• Gesso
• Crackle
• Gel medium
• White glue

Mixed elements:

• Sand
• Tiny pebbles
• Aluminum foil
• Egg shells
• Cloth
• Paper

Tools:

• Different knives
• Hair comb
• Plastic bag
• Fork

I'm not going to say how I used all, I leave those for you to try and play with.. Also try other things and I'd appreciate it if you share it with me!

I only have few warnings, avoid organic materials! They can look fine for a while but they might rot away with time, especially in a humid environment. Even sand should be left in an oven for some time in high temperature to kill all the bacteria.

I mentioned Crackle, many different brands have that product, yet every one of them is very different.. So I found these videos that showcase how they work.

Kroma Crackle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd5A0RD_CHs

Golden Crackle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP7r9fDlGDs

There are so many good videos out there that offer so much information, I often lose track of time while watching them.

Anyway, Enjoy! ^^

Metal Beetle

This piece took me about 15 hours, some pain and blood and about 2$ in material cost.

 

It's just an idea of the interesting things you can create from very overlooked materials. Most of it is made from metal cans, broken umbrella, metal wire and a piece of mash. All the joints are movable and most of the connections made by the wire wrapping technique that is often used in jewelry.

One of the more fun parts to do was the wings, I crocheted a thin copper wire that I got a while ago from an old broken monitor.

 

When attempting working with metal, keep in mind that it is a very hard and sharp material!

The full size of it is 7x11” / 18x28 cm

Creating a series of paintings

   For those who know me, the circle is my trade mark, it can even be seen in all the other pieces on this blog. Creating a perfect circle was much easier for me than creating a perfectly straight line, I'm not a ruler for crying out loud!

To push myself out of my comfort zone, I decided that I want to create a series of “straight line” compositions, and here I'll talk about the process that made me overcome my struggles.

Here are the steps I went through, click to see full image.

1. Find sources of inspiration, can be anything as long as it is somewhat relevant to what you want to achieve. For me it was:

 * Architecture

 * Power lines

 * Maps

 * Paper clippings as color samples

2. Create many different thumbnails of what your finished piece might look like. Don't spend too many time on those, here is where quantity is more important than quality. Create about 20+, the more, the better.

 3. Look through all of them, think and consult with others about what elements work in each piece and what doesn't work. Narrow down your favorites to about 5.

4. Select few that you are interested in working more on.

5. Create few additional variations of one or more piece on bigger scale. (giving example of just 1 selected piece, but I have done 3-5 variations for 4 other pieces that I have left behind, but they did serve as great studies, and I might come back to them and develop each into a series)

6. When you reach a point where you feel that you are happy with what you are doing, and see how it can turn into 3 or more painting, start working on the series!

I think the most important things were:
- The quantity over quality in the initial thumbnail paintings that allowed me to               experiment with many different styles
- The search for successful elements in each piece
- Doing a lot of writing about what I like and don't like, as I created them to avoid the    things that I don't like in the next piece.
- Changing the scale that I work on, some things that are done easily on small             scale, can be quite challenging on a bigger scale.