Clare Sherwen: February 2015

Friday, 13 February 2015

New Photos!

I've been doing a bit of experimenting with updating some of my artwork selling photos. Normally I take the photos outside with lots of good natural light so I get the best colour matches to the artwork but this does have its downsides! Such as trying to find a neutral background in the garden that isn't going to detract from the artwork and look too busy, I normally prop them on our brick barbecue as that has a neutral wall behind it. The weather can be fun too, you can almost have the perfect shot and then the wind blows your artwork over! Also I have the added problem of a very nosey cat who likes to come and see everything that I am doing!

Morpheus the cat supervising a photoshoot!

I decided last week to try something a bit different and to make the most of the bright Winter sun and try a few photos inside. I choose to take them on our marble fireplace as its cream with a neutral wall behind and the window is to the side to give lots of natural light.

I thought I'd start with some of my Egypt collagraph prints and whenever we go anywhere on holiday we always bring back little models/figures so I've got lots of props to go into the photos! I thought the Egypt prints looked great with the tiny little pyramids and Sphinx figure that we got from when we visited the pyramids a few years ago.

"Sphinx Head" Collagraph Print

I tried photographing my Stonehenge collagraph prints with a little model of Stonehenge itself but the model was very hard to make out and made the photo look a little fussy. I then remembered all my pebbles that I have collected from various beaches which I thought they would go really well with Stonehenge (it did cross my mind to make a mini Stonehenge with the pebbles but I thought that might be going a bit too far!)

"Stonehenge" Collagraph Print

I then got thinking about some of my Steampunk inspired artworks and thought why not just take a photo of the artwork with the actual hat and goggles that are in the artwork itself! This is my partners top hat and goggles which look great on him, the top hat is sadly too big for me else I would borrow it occasionally!