Water Colors? C&C Appreciated

[Fleetwood271]

I've seen a shot like this a couple of times. Once in magazine and once on a website (don't know if it was TPF or not).



So last week I decided to try my hand at doing something similar. I don't remember what colors they used, so I just picked some that I felt looked good together.

I also tried a shot with more pencils, which added more color, but since the change from pencil to pencil was more gradual, it didn't seem to have as appealing look as this one.

I'd appreciate your thoughts and/or comments.

Thanks!

 

[Alistair]

Fleet,

This is actually kinda cool, really. How did ya do it? A air blower underneath the pencils, with a straw or what? =)

 

[bumpylemon]

pretty cool. i wanna try it!

 

[KenC]

Nice! You might try it as a vertical cropped a little tighter on the sides.

I've seen people do similar things by immersing objects in seltzer - is that part of how you got this effect?

 

[Fleetwood271]

Fleet,

This is actually kinda cool, really. How did ya do it? A air blower underneath the pencils, with a straw or what? =)

Nah, nothing that required near that much thought.

1. Pick out the colored pencils you want to use.
2. Sharpen them so they all look similar.
3. Use a straight edge to line up all the tips.
4. Use tape near the middle (out of site) to hold them together and straight.
5. Lay them flat in a clear glass dish (I used one of my wife's 8" X 8" Pyrex dishes).
6. Place a piece of white paper under the dish.
7. Place something on top of the pencils to weight them down.
8. Camera on tripod, composed and focused to your taste.
9. Now....instead of water, pour in enough Sprite to cover the pencils. The carbonation in the Sprite causes the air bubbles that adhere to the pencils.
10. Flash set-up is up to you. I used an off camera flash, high on camera left,, through an umbrella. Considered another on the right to eliminate the shadows, but kinda liked this shot as is.

 

[Fleetwood271]

I've seen people do similar things by immersing objects in seltzer - is that part of how you got this effect?

Answer in Post #5.

 

[Fleetwood271]

Nice! You might try it as a vertical cropped a little tighter on the sides.

Kinda like this?

 

[Karri]

I saw this in the magazine too and your picture looks remarkably similar! Great job on replicating! I remember seeing it and wanting to try it too. :thumbup:

 

[Foxwolfe]

I like how this turned out but can't help but be bothered by the fact that the blue is in front of the green. I doubt it would be an issue if not for the fact that the red/orange/yellow are already lined up as if in order of the colors.

 

[Genka81]

Love it!!! I might be trying this soon.... Thanks for sharing!

 

[lildlege1]

Thank you for sharing that with us. I wanna try it to!!!!! Looks really nice!!!

 

[Bram]

Copy and paste? Just kidding man, Cool concept I saw this done with a pepper as well, but a fishtank was used, Really cool! I would try using a little less sprite and mix in a bit of water to takeaway some of the bubbles. Just a thought.

 

[Fleetwood271]

Copy and paste? Just kidding man, Cool concept I saw this done with a pepper as well, but a fishtank was used, Really cool! I would try using a little less sprite and mix in a bit of water to takeaway some of the bubbles. Just a thought.

Good thought. It's also worth noting that this shot was taken in the first couple of minutes after the Sprite was poured in the dish. If I had waited longer, I'm sure some of the bubbles would have dissipated.

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[Bram]

Oh yes for sure. the guy with the pepper when he dropped it in, he actually dropped it in 80% water and 20% sprite to make sure the only bubbles visible were stuck to the pepper and not floating in the abyss.

 

[LivinMoore]

This shot is very very cool. I would love to do something like that some day. Awesome.