Painted board photography backdrops

Welcome to a week of posts on emuse about photography backgrounds!

When I decorated my craft room earlier this year, one of the things I really wanted was an area where I could take photos of craft projects. I worked out somewhere in the room I could use for this, but I found that I kept having to put up a large sheet of white paper to form a base and background for the photos.

So when I saw this tutorial for creating wooden backdrops, I had to give making my own a try. But first I needed some pieces of wood. Luckily I dropped in at Remake Scotland’s scrapstore in Crieff, and I was able to get a couple of pieces for next to nothing. Its a fantastic organisation that encourages businesses to donate their waste products rather than sending them to landfill, and gives workshops so that people can make use of these in creative ways. It was founded by a school friend of mine, Fiona, and it was great to see her and get the guided tour!

For the first board, I painted it a teal colour (with leftover paint from doing my shed door!), then later added some white and dark blue streaks. On the other side I used green paint, but added some white while the green was still wet. This gave a smoother effect than adding it after the base colour had dried.

I painted one side of the second board roughly with pink and white paints, and the other side with blackboard paint. I like the idea that I will be able to write on this, with arrows pointing to items.

The boards are really useful, and I’m finding that they are really improving my photos.

Come back tomorrow to find out about another item I’ve made that will be useful for photography backgrounds!