New photography set up for studio using my iPhone

In my ongoing quest to simplify my studio practice and make each of the steps in my process faster, I looked this last week at the photography setup.  I no longer have a design/photo wall so the whole big camera with a tripod and photo lamps is not a workable option now.  Also, I'm working smaller since I'm not stitching big wall quilts.  This led to looking for 24" collapsible photo boxes and light setups that are quick and easy. 

I tried and discarded the spiffy cube that folded up like a tent with memory wire.  Alas, every time I wanted to use it, I had to go to YouTube and watch the video on how to fold it up when it was time to put it away.  Also, somehow, the light from my photography lights got slightly yellowed so I wanted to get a different box with built in lights.  I've done LED strips on my sewing machine and in my display cabinet so I decided to go with the low priced one on Amazon that had built in LEDs. 

As you can see from the above photo, it has a nice porthole on one side so I can use my phone clamp to take the shots without casting shadows.  (That's been the problem with just shooting things on the dining room table because we have a ceiling light.)  The box is made from sheets of plastic and comes with different colored inserts if you don't want a white background.  While this works (see picture below for result of above shooting setup) I cannot recommend the box itself.  Pros:  It came with a nifty zippered holder, and it does the basic job.  Cons:  The box was cracked in one corner when I unpacked it.  I can fix that with my trusty white duct tape so I'm not returning it but I'm not happy.  The LED light strips are coming off of the inside of the box and it's been set up for 2 days.  And the LEDs get hot very quickly which is not my experience with the ones on my sewing machine.  There were no instructions on setting it up in the box.  Not even a slip of paper with a webpage address.  The box is starting to sag because there really isn't sufficient support for the weight of the plastic. Also you need to have an extra USB to outlet plug for it unless you want to plug it into your computer.   It does what I need but I won't buy this one again.

On the other hand, I really like my phone clamp.  I bought it originally to do some videos which I haven't gotten around to yet.  It clamps onto the ikea bookcase behind the photo box and allows me to position the phone easily while holding it very steady while I snap photos.  Since I'm experimenting with digital collage right now, the ease of taking photos of a whole stack of my marbled fabric, for example, is wonderful.  Now I can zip into the bedroom where the small photo setup is located, put the phone in the holder, turn on the lights, position the fabric and snap.  It almost takes as long to describe it as it does to do it.  This is exactly the improvement in photography that I was hoping for so overall I am a very happy artist.

gluten free shrimp tempura

While all the snow bypassed us and headed to Seattle, we are socked in by shockingly low temps, at least by Bellingham standards.  So while I was waiting for the gesso to dry for the panels for my next set of studio experiments, I decided to do some experimenting in the kitchen.

I googled for "gf tempura batter" and picked 2 different recipes.  I only had the ingredients on hand for the one from   https://www.gfpatisserie.com/recipes/tempura-batter#/ so we went with that one.Very simple batter recipe:  2 C gf flour (we used the local coop's bulk version rather than the websites), 1 tsp baking soda, 1/4-1/2 tsp salt and 2 C sparkling water.  We ended up adding an extra cup of water because the batter was so thick and we only used about half of what we made so next time, we'll start with 1 C flour.

Heat the oil to 375F, do some tests with veggies and then start doing the shrimp.  This batter is quite tasty but more what I think of as fish & chips batter.  That's fine, being allergic to wheat has given me some serious fried fish cravings and this will do the trick.  I had intended to take a great picture of the lovely golden brown shrimp as I got them out of the pan but completely forgot until after they were all eaten.  Now to decide what fish to do for fish & chips....

experimenting with digital ground and acrylic skins

In and around a disastrous attempt at a week away, I've been doing some experimentation with digital grounds (from Golden) which led to some trials of making acrylic skins.  I was feeling reluctant to blog about it all because I don't really have a finished piece to show off but then I realized there's real value in sharing the interim work.  That's where my learning happens, after all. 

The piece above, Grounded (fuchsia) is a purely digital piece.  I was taking photos of the purple background piece that exists in fabric and didn't have the light set up correctly.  One of the photos came out really pink rather than purple.  And I liked it.  So I fiddled with the colors in Photoshop for a bit and ended up with this piece.  This led to wanting to put it on one of the wooden panels I use for mounting/framing my work but the question was how?  And that led to the digital ground experiments.

First I tried the porous surface ground on various papers:  cardstock, tissue paper, and regular inkjet paper.  Why bother with the ground at all, you ask?  Well, the ground fixes the ink so it won't bleed, at least this particular ground so I don't have to use any extremely stinky fixative spray on it.  And since I was already having some serious allergy issues with chemicals this week, that seemed the way to go.  Of the 3 papers, the cardstock worked best.  Tissue paper had a tendency to crinkle up and distort and the cardstock curled less than the regular paper.  The cardstock is easy to adhere to the wood panel with a layer of gel medium and then fairly easy to trim to fit with an exacto knife or rotary cutter.  But there's that layer of paper in there and it forces me to use an image that goes all the way to the edges.  What would work as well but not have that layer of white paper?

Acrylic skins seemed an obvious answer.  I got introduced to them in my paint pouring class and Golden has a very nice video about using their digital grounds on varied media, including the skins.  They also have a nice video about making skins.  So I started trying this idea out.

First, I needed to make skins.  Maybe it's my quilter's background, but I immediately wanted to be sure what size of skin I was making.  That led to me creating a skin template on the maximum size paper for my wide bed printer.  (13" x 19" for the curious.)  Since acrylic skins are made on a non-stick surface which can be clear or mostly translucent, this will let me size them while making them.

So first I tried matte medium brushed on my 2 different Teflon pressing sheets.  They're what I use when fusing fabric and I have several extras as I used to have multiple surfaces covered with them.  I brushed the medium in one direction first, let it dry, then did the perpendicular direction.  Both of those were a good solid skin but a bit thin and I had problems getting the edge to start peeling up.  This is when I went to the Golden videos for info on making skins.

I switched to gloss medium since it dries clear and that is one of the things I was looking for.  And I poured a heavier amount of medium onto the Teflon sheets and spread it with a palette knife.  Unfortunately, the medium had a tendency to bead up and leave holes in the skin with the first layer.   So I made a mental note to try a gel medium next and moved on to trying a paint/gloss medium mixture on parchment paper.  This worked fairly well altho the resulting skin was streaky in the color because I didn't blend the paint into the medium before spreading it. 

And that's where I am now.  With some ideas of things to try and at least 2 workable approaches for what I want to do.  I have several more experiments on my list for February and I'll undoubtedly share them here.