Chit Bowls

 

When I have ten minutes or so to spare, I'll knock out another one of these little pine bowls -- they're all roughly 70mm-ish in diameter. There are another four or five blanks left from the bit of 3x2, so that's how many there will eventually be.

When we're playing board games, very often there are lots of little piles of chits or pieces that could do with being ordered and restrained from scattering all over the place. That's what these are intended for.

Each one is different from all the others, because production-line manufacture of identical pieces bores me rigid.

Focus Stacking

 

Something I've just tried out for the first time is focus stacking in Affinity Photo.

This is a process that is used a lot in macro photography, as the focal plane tends to be very shallow, both because the lens is very close to the subject, and also to keep exposures manageable.

The way it works is by taking several photos, with the focus set to a different point on the subject for each one.

Affinity Photo automates the process almost entirely. It's not exactly idiot-proof, but it's pretty easy. And it also provides tools for fixing errors that may arise due to subject movement or what-not.

This is a plastic Reaper Remorrhaz, photographed with a Canon EOS 50D and 28-135mm macro lens.

Below are the three source images I used, focused on the front, middle and back of the model. To the right is the image  combined in Affinity Photo.

 In retrospect, this was not the ideal model to try this out on. The metallic finish makes finding crisp focus more difficult than it might otherwise be, and my eyes are not as precise these days as they... well, they never really were.

Juggler Mime

 

This little canvas (about 150mm square) I painted quite a few years ago, mainly because A wanted something in these colours for her office, but also to try out a craquelure medium I'd bought.

Acrylics on pre-stretched canvas .