Fine Art America

January 10, 2022

Morning Coffee and a Mimosa to Start the Day

Continuing the Kitchen Macro Challenge at Fine Art America

My participation in the “7 Day Kitchen Macro Images” challenge continues with my own “breakfast” theme interpretation of that challenge. Of course we start breakfast with a beverage, either hot or cold. My first images were of a pot of tea being brewed for my wife. Next up is coffee and a breakfast cocktail.

The coffee at our home is normally from a K-Cup of a good blend and produced by a Keurig-style coffee maker. I do like one full cup to start the day – just the way it comes out of the bean – no sugar or cream(er).

On occasion we will also enjoy a breakfast cocktail, a Mimosa to be more exact. That gives us our dose of Vitamin C in the Orange Juice. Grape juice, too, right? LOL

The Champagne and OJ should be from the refrigerator. The glass should also be chilled. Here is a narrow Champagne-flute-style glass with a single ice cube chilling the rim. The image has been “adjusted” to bring out the shapes and edges with the dark background. It might even be considered to be an abstract. Regardless, the end result, the Mimosa, was just fine. Maybe even perfect.

The following links will let you browse larger images and see the choices of wall art and home décor products on which they are available.

Link: Brewing Coffee With Expressionism

Link: Ice Cube in a Mimosa Glass

January 8, 2022January 20, 2022

Brewing a Pot of Tea as Part of a Challenge at FAA

A pot of hot tea is a great way to begin the day – even with camera in hand.

Being a fairly active member of the art Discussions (forum) at Fine Art America I have been involved in several “Art Challenges” over the last year. These involve posting one new piece of art based on a theme, one piece per day for a set number of days. The Forum Moderator, Abbie (a talented painter and photographer), creates these challenges along with the help of another uniquely talented artist, Donna. These challenges help us, as artist-participants, focus for a period of time on a particular theme, which encourages new creativity. We all get to see how colleagues interpret the theme, creating a win-win activity for all involved.

The current challenge is “7 Day Kitchen Macro Images” and has about 30 guinea pigs, er – participants, creating close-up images of things in/around a kitchen. I started off with my morning kitchen routine of making a pot of tea for my wife and a cup of coffee for me. My only change in routine was to have my camera in hand affixed with a macro (close-up) lens. My first image was of the fire used to heat the teapot full of water.

Blue Flams heating the Tea Pot — An Expressionism view of blue gas flames heating a pot of water to make tea.

Yesterday, day #1 of the Challenge, I heated the water for a pot of tea – so today (day #2) I added in the tea bag. The teabag was easier to photograph than the gas flame because I didn’t have to put the camera right on the stove near the burners.

Tea Bag as a Charcoal Sketch — A traditional tea bag hanging by its string and presented as a simulated charcoal sketch.

I was able to hang the tea bag by its string and photograph it with a shallow depth of field to blur out the background, which is actually a brown wicker-back chair near a window. A tea bag, by itself, is rather plain so I edited this into a simulated charcoal sketch presentation.

Link: Blue Flames Heating Up the Teapot Expressionism

Link: Tea Bag Rendered in Charcoal

Tomorrow I will need to photograph a cup of coffee as it is being brewed. 🙂

Visit my FAA gallery at Bill Swartwout Photography.

January 1, 2022January 20, 2022

I Use Zazzle for Calendars

My photographs appear on Calendars, Jigsaw Puzzles, Ornaments, Prints and more at Zazzle.

Yes, people still buy and use calendars and the first day of a new year is an appropriate time to bring this up. Just this morning, New Years Day, I received an email inquiry from a fellow artist at Fine Art America (FAA) inquiring about where I have my calendars produced. There have been quite a few discussions on the FAA Forum about the possibility of offering calendars there. For a number of reasons I doubt that will happen. Below is the gist of my answer…

My 2022 Assateague Pony Calendar Offering

I am certainly willing to share information with fellow artists about calendars. I use Zazzle, another quality POD (Print On Demand company) that make about a gazillion products. I sell calendars, ornaments, jigsaw puzzles, calendars and (yes) even some prints there. I no longer promote the puzzles at Zazzle because I prefer the ones offered at FAA. However, I had started offering puzzles and calendars with Zazzle six years ago and they still sell – a lot. I suppose that is because they have been in their internal search for so long and, because of that, Zazzle actually promotes them with Google ads. The same with the calendars they offer – calendars with my photographs, that is.

Zazzle provides the template but the whole system is not very intuitive – It takes a good while to get used to it. But they also have a very active forum – for info, advice, help, etc. There are a few FAA members also active at Zazzle.

Here is a link to my Assateague Pony Calendar: https://www.zazzle.com/z/301dowpa

Here is a link to the much of what I currently have at Zazzle: https://www.zazzle.com/mbr/238675969062853179/stores

Try a search for – Assateague Pony Calendar – on google and see if you can understand why I sell a lot at Zazzle. The wild horses of Assateague Island are quite popular.

Regards,

Bill

BTW – here is the text of the original email inquiry. I actually receive frequent questions similar to this…

Hi Bill,
I read your response to the discussion thread on calendars. Wondering if you would please share the company you used to do this with? And if they supplied a template or if you had to create with a particular software or app, which one?
Thanks & Happy New Year!