Photography Background: DIY Crackle Paint

Here at Luke Photography, it is time to start building new sets and painting new backgrounds for the upcoming senior portrait season.  This year, I've decided to add a few new grungy backgrounds to the options that I have for senior pictures.  One background is authentically weathered and beaten down, the other had to appear that way.

I visited a salvage yard that sells old architectural parts that are taken from buildings that are slated for demolition or major renovation, and purchased couple of pairs of old exterior shutters that are 8 feet tall. Years of sun exposure and weather have cracked, peeled and faded the paint, and they had a beautiful patina on them.  All it took was a wire brush to scrape off the loose paint, and they were good to go.

I acquired five fiberglass interior doors in the past 6 months.  Didn't pay a dime for them.  Three were being thrown out, and I rescued them before they hit the dumpster. The last two doors were near the curb in my neighborhood on trash day.  Score.  Now I had to make them look as old as the shutters, without waiting 80 years.  Yeah, I'm a little impatient.

Scouring the internet, I came across a DIY chalk paint recipe and crackle painting technique that I used to apparently speed up the aging process of these doors.  Because I had five doors, I had ten sides that I could paint.  I decided to paint one side of the door a light color and the other side a darker color, so I had a lot of options once the doors were done.

The paint itself is just latex house paint.  I have numerous cans of leftover paint from home projects that I used, and my studio landlord offered a few more colors that I found interesting.

Chalk paint was used around the turn of the century and had limestone in it to make it durable.  To make the DIY chalk paint recipe, I mixed 1/3 cup of water and 1/3 cup of plaster of paris in a cup to make a water slurry.  This then gets mixed into 1 cup of paint.  You can't store or re-use this paint mixture, so only mix what you'll use for one coat, and mix it just before you are going to use it. This 1 1/3 cup of DIY chalk paint is reportedly more than enough to paint a dresser, so I cut back the recipe by half, so I didn't throw as much out after only painting one side of a door.

The key to a good crackle finish is to have highly contrasting colors of paint on the door so that the cracks in the paint really show up well..  If you want a finished door with a light color, a very dark color has to be the base coat, and if your finished door is going to be a dark color, the base color has to be a very light color.  For the darker colored doors, I just used white primer paint as my base coat, and for the lighter colored doors, my base coat was black, or very dark grey or brown.

Applying base coat for a light-colored door

Finished base coat for light-colored door

Once the base coat on the door dry, then I was ready to start the crackle paint technique.  On top of the dry base coat I painted each door with a coat of white glue.  I bought a 1-gallon container of Elmer's glue from my local art supply store, and will probably use at least half of it for the 10 door sides.  The second (top) coat has to be painted when the glue is tacky and starting to dry.  The glue coat has to be fairly thick, otherwise it will dry too quickly, and you will have lost the window of opportunity to apply the top paint coat and get the crackle finish. A thicker coat of glue also results in larger cracks in the top coat of paint when it is dry.

Starting the glue coat

Finished coat of glue

When the glue started to set up and was tacky, I started painting the top coat of DIY chalk paint on the door.  I painted in the same sequence that I painted the glue on, so that the glue was in the same state of dryness as the top coat was applied.  The top coat has to dry for several hours.  Once it was dry, I rubbed a light coat of dark wood stain over the entire door, which helped it to look old and dirty.

Starting the top paint coat

Top coat almost finished

Glue and top paint coat starting to dry

Applying wood stain

Before and after

Detail of finished door

Several finished doors

Miley, my studio companion with the new "old" doors

What Successful People Do On the Weekends

Mid-December paddle in the snow and ice of Hemlock Lake

Before I worked as a full-time professional photographer and opened my studio, I worked as a part-time photographer, and devoted most weeknights and many hours of the weekend on my part-time profession. My weekday hours were filled with my duties as an environmental scientist (12 yrs.) or software quality manager/engineer (12 yrs.), which were my two careers in Corporate USA.  My fellow photographers were never surprised to get e-mails from me at 2am from my home studio, then followed up by at 7:30am e-mail from my corporate job.

Three years ago when I left Corporate USA, I would spend all day in my studio, then continued to devote my evenings and weekends to my fledgling full-time business, which consumed sometimes 20 hours a day.  After one year of that I knew I needed to avoid getting burned out, so I carved out more time for my pleasure activities, which included biking, kayaking, golf, socializing, and...gasp...even napping in my hammock.

This Forbes article expands on the things that successful people do on the weekends:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/02/22/14-things-successful-people-do-on-weekends/

Drew - Fairport HS Senior Portraits, Class of 2014

 Drew comes from a family of soccer players.  He has three younger brothers and they all play, sometimes totally 11-12 games a week for the family.  Knowing how important it is, and knowing how good of a player Drew is, I had planned something special for him.  Little did I know it would be over so quickly.

When I apporached Drew with the idea of capturing him doing a scissor kick, he said, "Sure, let's do it!"
But wait a minute, Drew, it's not going to be that easy.  Or is it?  I set up two studio lights: one a White Lightning 1600 in an Apollo soft box to camera right, to light up his left side; and a Quantum T2 flash to camera left to light up his right side.  I positioned myself where I would get him in mid-air against the stadium seats and press box, with the two lighting standards in view.  His mother tossed the ball in mid air, and he executed the most perfect scissor kick.  Well, I have to assume it was perfect, because when I pressed the shutter button, the camera's mirror flipped up at precisely the exact time he was kicking the ball, thus blocking my view through the viewfinder.

When I looked at the image immediately afterwards on the camera's LCD, I couldn't beleive that it all came together on the first take: great lighting, excellent jump, great timing, and a perfect look on his face.  One take.  One take and move on.

Drew has a huge collection of sneakers and cleats, because he doesn't seem to grow out of any of them any more.  I thought a photo of him laying in a pile of foot ware would be a uniquely colorful image.

Drew was the first tennis player I had the opportunity to photograph after conceiving the idea for this photo. I dusted the back half of a tennis ball with baby powder, then had him launch it with a forehand.  The powder had to be lit from behind in order for it to stand out from the black background, so I placed two studio lights left and right behind him to light up the dust cloud.  A gridded flash was used to light his face to show the detail.

Jenn - Fairport HS Senior Portraits, Class of 2014

Jenn is the other half of the Crater twins, a lacrosse-playing brother and sister from Fairport.  During her consultation she described herself as funny, easy-going, and athletic, and I found her to be exactly that.  Her mother described her as being shy and quiet, so I wanted to show that with the following photo of her in the spotlight on the studio floor. Jenn is a goalie on the girls' lacrosse team, so we had to make sure we took the time to include that in her session.

Sarah - Fairport HS Senior Portraits - Class of 2014

All I knew of Sarah before she walked into the studio was that she played 2^nd base on Fairport’s varsity softball team.  We had that in common, as I played 2^nd base for many years.  By the time her session was done, we had more in common, as we both loved her photos.

Sarah has a fun and outgoing personality, but is also a very energetic, focused and driven athlete.  During the early part of her session, she flashed a nice, easy smile while in the studio, and jumped around energetically while outside.  Near the end of her session, once she put her softball and basketball uniforms on, the session changed and the more focused side of her personality came out, even proudly showing some of the bruises badges of courage on her legs..  She even let me spray her face down with water for several shots at the end, showing a focused, sweaty and driven athlete.

Kelsey - Fairport HS Senior Portraits - Class of 2014

Kelsey had just finished her last final exam in the morning of the same day her senior portrait session was scheduled.  I half expected her to be tired....or cranky....or both.....but I was pleasantly surprised when she walked in, showing her 1,000-watt smile and was really ready to go.  We knocked off numerous great photos in the studio, then proceeded to go outdoors and pick some nearby locations that provided studio-quality light, and her face just radiated the great smile. Sometimes my job as a photographer is difficult....trying to coax 'natural" smiling expressions from difficult high school seniors who don't want to be there....then there are days like this with Kelsey that make all that worthwhile.

Corteney - Fairport HS - Senior Portraits

I love photographing the contrast of warm and cool colors together, as shown here by the warm reddish orange of Corteney's dress and the cool blue of the worn denim jacket, then the warn rusty tones of the hand-painted background.  Corteney was the first to be photographed against this background, and it looks like it was made just for her. 

Corteney brought this leather jacket all the way from Spain, and we made sure that it played a prominent part during her session.  The rich carmel color of the jacket was really enhanced by the color of her blonde hair, and was made all that mofe saturated by the cool mottled greens of the background.

The thin stripes in Corteney's top play well against the geometric grey shapes of the background, another favorite in the studio.  Her face and hair are really prominent against the cool grey tones behind her.

This is a perfect pose and color combination for Corteney.

Although basketball is her favorite sport, the lighting in this soccer photo shows off her eyes and creates wonderful drama and impact, especially against the dark background.

Ashley - Fairport HS Senior portraits

Ashley is the 3rd model representative from Fairport's Class of 2014 to have her senior portraits taken at Luke Photography.  She plays basketball almost year-round and is a starter on Fairport's varsity basketball team.  She is tall and statuesque and looks as much like a model as any athlete I've had come through the studio.  Although she was getting over a cold and didn't feel well, she certainly gave all her energy during the 3-hour session, then has to turn around that evening and go to work.

I really love it when people bring in their own ideas for their portraits, and Ashley did not let me down.  She had seen this idea of writing her graduation year on the bottom of her flip flops, so that it would show up correctly when her feet were crossed while lying on her stomach..it didn't just happen that way....there is actually quite a bit of planning to make sure it looked right.

Ashley's royal blue prom dress really made her stand out against the new high-key set wall in the studio.  We made sure her pose showed off the leg slit and the peek-a-boo cutout in her dress.  Very stylish and chic without showing too much.

For this image, Ashley was posed outside along the canal.  For all the photographers out there, here is the geeky part: the camera was set to tungsten white balance, which produces a blue color cast over everything when photographed outdoors during the day.  Orange filters were placed over the two flashes in the soft box which she is looking towards, which corrected the light on her face and skin, rendering it a neutral tone.  This trick is used to create impact lighting out in daylight.

Depending on what color the subject is wearing, different colors pop out from this background.  Ashley's fuschia top made the pinks in this background really stand out, but nothing stands out more than Ashley, who looked fantastic all day, and was so comfortable in front of the camera.

McKenzie - Fairport HS Senior Portraits

McKenzie is one of five model representatives from Fairport High School that are getting the word out on the street about the unique senior portraits done at Luke Photography.  She is very outgoing and we certainly had alot of laughs during her session.  We even took advantage of a fairly warm and sunny early April day to venture outside and photograph around the Village of Fairport.