You Should Have Seen It In Color

May 11, 2022

Should Have Seen It In Color

It started back when my girls were in High School. Capturing memories has always been a huge priority in my life, memories of family, special places and things that inspire me and that I find beautiful and inspiring. The sporting events with the kids I seemed to be able to catch that great shot with nothing more than my camera phone. With throwing myself into getting the perfect shot I decided to upgrade and invest in a camera, so I bought a good quality Canon Rebel T5 and man did my world open up! Now I had zoom lenses and special settings and the quality was unmatched with my phones camera. But I knew there was more, and I was hooked.

When the girls entered High School, they started playing more club sports also which put everything on another level not only with their talent but also my finances, let’s say strain lol. So with educating my girls on how to pay their own way and hopefully teaching them some business skills I pondered on avenues to pay for all these extra-curricular activities and landed on selling fur coats. NOW you’re saying what in the world… How did you end up there you ask, I have no idea, but it worked. Soo you know my girls are really pretty good looking young ladies and I knew if we were going to be successful we would need to be magazine worthy. So I did my research, invested in really nice coats buying them up on eBay and Craigslist at a really great deal and we would get all dolled up and do a photoshoot. We did this for three years, each year for three months and we made bank! It paid for my girls Club Sports, Proms and even helped with buying them their very first cars. The number one key besides having a good plan and good-looking kids was the CAMERA! From there the camera went with me everywhere and we traveled a lot so that developed my love for Landscape and Wildlife photography.

When I started The Painted Pinto, I really dreamed of being able to sell more of my photography than the furniture, it was just my love. The more I painted and developed that talent it stood shoulder to shoulder with photography, than one day about three months into painting furniture I had an epiphany when I was working on a large dresser/buffet, and I envisioned my photography all over the front of that piece. I had taken a beautiful portrait photo of a Buffalo and had several months earlier had it printed in a metallic and decided to try my hand at decoupage, well let’s say trial and error there was lots of error. We’ve all done paper mâché in school or church camp where you take the Elmer’s Glue and smear it on a surface and tear small pieces of tissue paper and apply it letting it dry and then sealing it with the same glue. So I went to Walmart and bought Modge Podge transfer adhesive and glued that sucker right on the front of the dresser! Ummm, well it was attempted lol. The paper was way to stiff and wasn’t easily manipulated to the shape of the drawers, so I sanded it off and started over. I did my research on YouTube on similar projects and figured out what type of paper I would need but didn’t have that, so I resorted to regular legal-size paper and my Canon printer. I got the size I needed by adjusting in the printer setting and printing off I think nine different pieces that would require lining up just perfectly on the piece. I then came up with the bright idea of just transferring the ink to the piece kind of like one of those kids tattoos, letting it dry and take a damp cloth and gently whip away the paper… nope that didn’t work either BUT I’m not a quitter!! SOOO I sanded it down once again, reprinted the image and applied it straight on and Waa- Laaa! Wild Bill was created, and I was in love. That has been the only image of my photography that has been married with my furniture the desire is still there and has been for two and a half years. I’ve just settled with it being in its own lane and showcased on beautiful wood canvases and sold as Wall Décor.

I do shoot with a Canon 5D Mark IV and use a Sigma 150-600 mm lens for most of my Landscape and Wildlife photography followed by a Sigma 35 mm 1.14DG ART lens. All photography is ran through Adobe Lightroom and for a final process Adobe Photoshop and I am always looking for ways to improve my imaging. Photography will always be my favorite because it feeds my soul with inspiration, furniture is my other creative outlet to release all inspiration. Thank you, God for family and all things created so that I might see beauty!!