Month: March 2010

Tutorial – Photographing Glass Tile Art Necklaces

While I was uploading necklaces to my Etsy page, I took a few setup photos which I thought might prove useful to someone out there. So here goes my impromptu tutorial on photographing glass tile necklaces!

For those who are unfamiliar, glass tile necklaces are necklaces made by affixing artwork (or a reproduction of the artwork) onto glass tiles with special glass adhesive. They’re a fun way to pass the time and some of my best-selling items at conventions.

MATERIALS


First, you will need a few things. Obviously, a camera is a given! I use a Nikon D50 which allows me to focus manually, if need be, and control the shutter speed/F stop. Any camera with decent focusing abilities should work, however, since we’ll be photographing in bright light, which is easy to focus in. (More on camera settings later!)

1. Tabletop with Covering – This is just a simple waist-high nightstand with a dress skirt draped over it. The skirt is a light material with vintage patterning on it which makes a perfect backdrop for my style of necklaces. I don’t recommend strong bold patterns as a backdrop since it can detract from your items.

For the purposes of this tutorial, we won’t even be seeing the vintage backdrop, but it is useful when photographing other styles of necklaces that require you to capture the necklace display and part of the background (like this).

2. Twist-tie – It’s hard to see in this image, but that’s a twist-tie. I use this to hold together the cord or chain of the necklace, should it be too long to display properly on the velvet display.

3. Necklace Display – This is a flat style necklace display that you can grab from the beading section of any store like Hobby Lobby, Michaels, etc. for just a few bucks.

4. Cardstock Backdrop – This is just a simple piece of white cardstock which you can get from any craft store that sells scrapbooking stuff. I took a stock photo of marble and edited it to a neutral low texture image then printed it onto the paper myself. This will act as our main backdrop for the art tile necklaces.

SETUP

I set up my small table in our sun room, which has large open windows that let the light stream in on sunny days. If you have direct sunlight streaming in, you should put up a white muslin sheet or bedsheet to diffuse the strong light. That way your items will have soft shadows instead of harsh ones. This keeps your glass tiles from having strong reflections in them that can obscure the art underneath the glass.

Arrangement – The items are arranged so that the light is coming in from the right side of the necklace, making the shadows stronger on the left.

I took the images for this tutorial in late afternoon when the sunlight wasn’t streaming directly in, but rather bouncing off other objects, making the light less stark without a sheet to diffuse it.

Alternatively, days with consistent, but light cloud covering work just as well.

Camera Settings – Honestly, I keep it simple and use my camera set on Automatic with the file settings on FINE JPEG, that way they are relatively small file sizes with large dimensions. You don’t really need raw or huge files for Etsy, since the site displays files fine at a minimum height/width of 450 px and a max file size of 2 MB. You can take huge pictures so customers can zoom in, but I find that if they can make out a decently focused image of the item that having huge pictures is not necessarily required.

Since the lighting is so bright, you don’t really need to tweak your advanced settings unless you want to make your white balance perfect (but this is beyond the scope of this tutorial). I do recommend the use of a tripod (which you can get at Walmart for $20) to keep your camera steady.

Step 1. Lay the cardstock against the necklace display. This should leave enough room for the ‘neck’ part of the display to be exposed.

Step 2. Drape your necklace over the neck part of the display. If the necklace is too long and runs onto the tabletop, use the twist-tie to bind the cords in the back.

Step 3. Use your camera’s focus brackets to line up the lens with the very center of detail in your tile. I always take at least 3 shots of any angle on a necklace to make sure I will have plenty of variations to choose from.

Step 4. Load them up in Photoshop and tweak them to your liking. Personally, I tweak the Exposure and Gamma (Under Image>Adjustments>Exposure) of my photos till their brightness and detail matches my needs. Smart Sharpen (under Filters>Sharpen) can be handy when a photo is slightly out of focus as well.

PRESTO!
The finished product, prettified and arranged for Etsy!

See this necklace on Etsy

Odds, Ends, & Commissions


In my last post, I spoke of the many avenues of income I hope to pursue. For as excited as I am about that, such knowledge requires time and research before I can go about making further posts about them.

Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to pass this ‘unproductive’ research time by searching out other opportunities for income. I’m participating in the Devwear Design Battle on DeviantART with a t-shirt design that I’m sure will be to die for. Featuring the return of my favorite psychotic Elf chica, Aurora Adonai (view WIP). Besides earning me a chance at royalties and a $1k advance, it’s been good fun to get back to more personal characters of mine.

I also have my eye on the $50k Hudgen’s Prize for Georgia artists (of which I’m still trying to decide what to enter) and the Discovering a Muse Challenge over at ArtOrder, which offers up a way to participate in charity giving as well as get my work seen by some of the AD’s (art directors) over at Wizard’s of the Coast (the fine folks who create card games and such for Dungeons and Dragons, amongst other things)

Funny to think that contests are oftentimes ignored as opportunities for income, but with everyone on the job hunt, they’re better than none for filling the time!

Completion of my big book project means I’m also opening up my schedule to commissions again! I still offer them at my normal rate and hope to be hitting the fairs and conventions hard once I have all my ducks in a row as far as equipment. I’m so excited to get back into the game! Spring ushers in the convention and fair season, after all!

I’m strangely even more excited to talk to people again. I miss the convention atmosphere, talking to like minds and networking with other artists. After nearly a year and a half of being a social pariah, I’m so ready to get out there!

Till next time! Keep an eye out soon for something super special. My illustration board scraps are begging to be used and you all are my prime targets.

The Outer Limits – Income Beyond the Art Gallery

The first few years of my university art education were spent thinking that if I could not sell or show my work in a gallery, then I could not be an artist of worth, nor able to earn an income. My future seemed inextricably tied to a particular community which I never felt that I fit into, being primarily a fantasy artist. Angels and elves never quite fit right next to abstract expressionism and moody landscapes. Fantasy was not ‘fine art’ nor ‘classical’ and was therefore unworthy of being shown in galleries (though this is thankfully changing in recent times!)

It seemed foolish and hopeless to think that an artist could be worthwhile or make a living any other way. A worthless dreamer was I who could not find a place in a gallery without tearing up bits of journals pages and pretending some kind of political or personal agenda was imbued into each piece of work. This sort of work has its place, but I did not feel that it was mine. I reserve my emotions for other means of expression.

Years passed. I started moving in different circles. Research began for my MA thesis on e-marketing for artists. My field of vision began to widen as I found more and more cases of artists such as Valentina Trevino, more commonly known as Val of ValsArtDiary.

A relatively young artist in her 20’s, Val was like many artists who come out of school feeling hopeless, unable to find gallery representation, and working meaningless jobs to pay the bills. She became independently successful after setting up her own website and marketing herself via social media. She is most well known for her videos on YouTube that showcase her painting process. Each video ends with a link to an eBay auction where one can purchase her paintings. Within 2 years, she had had found success and sold every single one of her original paintings.

It is with Val’s example in mind that I am hopeful in pursuing my own path outside the Gallery market. My Thesis research revealed a myriad of options from art licensing to selling face to face at art fairs to video and online marketing a la Val’s strategy. All of which I hope to talk more about here as I prepare to do some ‘field research’ for my own art career.

Welcome to the outer limits of the art world, my friend! I hope to stay awhile.

Waiting in the Wings

Yes, I’m still alive!

I realized today it’d been more than a month since I last posted an entry here (so much for that twice a week schedule). Normally, I’d consider this a failing at being consistent with my social media schedule, but sometimes there are just more important things in life that need tending to.

In the month I’ve been absent from the net, I’ve been reconnecting with old friends, spending time with loved ones, and pouring all of my energy into the final stages of a project which I’m extremely excited about. Without spoiling too much hype, I have been working on the writing of a book that illustrates how I go through many of my illustration methods, the book itself packed with new artwork which was created specifically for its pages. I did a short feature about some of the artwork and its references, if you’re curious and want a small preview of things to come.

This will be a mass market book that you will be seeing on the shelves of nearly every major book store near you! There’s still editing, perfecting, and packaging to be done, but a final product is on the horizon! To be sure, I will keep all of you up to date on this blog.

Until the time comes to divulge more info about my book, I’ve been gauging what the future holds for me. Many paths are unraveling, from traveling to art fairs and conventions to pursuing alternate means of income such as licensing and online venues. It’s a bit overwhelming at times, but always exciting! I hope to keep a record here of this journey of discovery with further posts about what it takes to sell work at an art fair to the trials of art licensing and more. I’ll be hitting alternate markets hard in this year to come. My sledgehammer is ready to smash!

So stay tuned! There’s more waiting in the wings.