Early morning shadows

I create folk art primitive paintbrushes and have them on display here at the house. I like the way the early morning sun created strong shadows, both from the brushes as well as from the mullions on the windows. 

Do I paint with these? Pssshhhhh. No. (Well, with one I did, second from the right.) But I do make cool brushes! 

 ©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone Photo of the Day

I've got a collection of old grungy paintbrushes (and some of you are saying, "of course you do!"). They were in the studio. The phone was in the studio. So I placed the brushes in front of a monoprint to give them an appropriate background and took a few photos. Processed with Snapseed.

©Carol Leigh

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

Art is messy . . .

Earlier this year I visited a Goodwill store and bought two wooden artist boxes containing a few used palettes, paintbrushes, and a few tubes of old paint. Then, two months ago, while with Linda H. in Portland, I found a couple bags of really grungy paint tubes. (Actually, Chris found them, brought them over saying, "I think we should buy these." Do you wonder why I love this guy?)

This morning, which was quite overcast, I went out onto the deck in the back yard and set some of the brushes and paint tubes on one of the palettes and took some photos. Gradually the sun got too bright, my back got too stiff, and Abby began playing with the brushes, so it was time to stop. Here are the results.

You'd think this sort of photography would be easy. Just dump the paint tubes onto a palette, toss a few brushes on top, point straight down and click. Well, yeah, SOUNDS simple enough. But getting the tripod to straddle the whole setup, retrieving the paintbrush that fell through a crack in the deck, reflecting golden light onto the scene, keeping an eye on the cat, being distracted by the cutest little bunny that's taken up residence in the yard, making sure bright light didn't enter through the viewfinder (which results in underexposed photos), and continually wiping sticky, yucky old paint off my fingers, well, it's just a bit more difficult than it sounds.

Everything's now packed away, ready for me to drag it all out again and shoot some more, this time showing overviews of the whole box. Think I'm gonna need some more old tubes of paint . . . where's Chris?

©Carol Leigh, who spotted at least 10 whales off the coast yesterday!