100 Days: I Have a Soft Pot for You

Inspired by a photo of softly tinted tin cooking pots hanging in an old kitchen, I thought I'd whip up a few more background kettles of various sizes for Rana's kitchen.

I collected plastic food containers that had nice general kettle shapes to them, sanded off the embossed markings, recycling numbering, etc., added wire to create lips and filled in with flexible cement as necessary. Added simple pounded wire handles in the same gauge regardless of pot size, as my character's hand size remains constant (typing that I realize that the smaller pot could have had a bit smaller handle as some things in my kitchen have smaller handles.) Made faux handle rivets out of glue. I finished them off in real aluminum paint a fantastic new patina trick.

I took my trusty burnt umber pastel, ground it down with fine sandpaper to get its dust, and then used that to tint matte medium. It gave the exact soft metal look I was after. I can show that effect off better in my post about the Polaroid macro lenses I scored coming soon. (The photo on the right shows the behind the scenes on that set up.)