St. Patrick's Day Paint Experiment

We have been hard at work recently trying to put together a portfolio for the upcoming Local Art in the Highlands: Womanly Art Show on May 12.  We asked each of our models to bring with them something that represents who they are as a person or their occupation.  We had one model, Kristy, ask if paint brushes would be a good prop to use since she was an artist.  Paint brushes would have been a great prop but we had a better idea.  We wanted to throw some paint on her!

Paint splatter photography is a whole new thing for us and we were so excited.  It was going to be big day of experiments and messes.  Because there are so many ways to do paint splatter and we didn’t want to have to hose down our model between different splatter processes, we called up another fantastic model, Bridget.  Both girls were amazing and we think Bridget may be a front runner for our annual Pin-up Girl contest this summer so anyone else looking forward to that event should probably start practicing those poses now!

As mentioned, this was a day of experiments.  We watered down tempera paint to dump, squirt, and throw onto our models.  Squirting paint wasn’t the greatest.  The impact is really fast and hard to capture, plus is it is very condensed and a lot like being sprayed with a super soaker.  Our models were great, though, and hardly even flinched.  Throwing paint from a cup onto the models seemed to work a little better.  There was a bigger splash, the paint moved slower so it was easier to time a shot, and it probably wasn’t as much of a shock to the models.  We really wanted to make a rainbow waterfall that poured over our models so we made a nifty little contraption that would allow us to pour all the colors over the models at one time.  It’s amazing what you can do with a couple of cups, some duct tape, and a piece of tubing!

The last style we tried for the day was dry paint.  This proved to be the most difficult and we weren’t really sure what looked better: the cloud of paint powder, the impact of it hitting the models, or just the powder on the models afterward.  Since it was powder, there was also the fear of getting it in everyone’s eyes and mouths.  By the way, when trying to blow powder onto someone, keep the powder away from your mouth when you take in your big breath of air (it’s not very fun to suck a bunch of paint powder down your throat!).  We tried packing a straw full of powder and blowing it out, but it was too hard to blow out of the straw.  Next we tried a piece of ¾” tubing, but the effect wasn’t what we wanted.  We had a thick piece of paper that was folded into a V, which gave us a really big cloud but not much of an impact when it hit the models.  As a last attempt to get something with the powder we just threw handfuls of paint powder.  This gave us a cloud and some impact.  Sometimes it is just that simple!  We have heard that chalk powder works better for this kind of shoot.  If there are any other techniques or tricks that could make this work better then please let us know.

This was probably one of the most interesting and fun shoots we have ever done.  Our models were amazing and up for anything that we threw at them…literally!  The shots we have displayed are some of our favorites but the very best are not shown.  Instead they can be seen on May 12 at Local Art in the Highlands: Womanly Art Show.

Ms. Bridget

 

  Kristy