Step Into the Light

My Studio Lighting Set Up- Very Complex

The foundation to creating sellable reproductions of your art and having that continued income source is the high resolution photo of the artwork.  I can't stress enough that you need to get a good picture or scan of your artwork before you ever put it on display or apply the sealing varnish coat.  Once the original is sold, it is all over.


I just recently purchased an electrical outlet remote so that I can turn the studio lighting on and off as I walk in and out of the studio. I think we purchased that at Home Depot but here is a link for the same thing on Amazon. (Electrical outlet remote control)

There are a number of good YouTube videos about taking photos of your artwork and these folks know a great deal more about the functioning of their cameras than I do.  We use our Canon EOS T2i  camera on a tripod to take photos of my paintings.  We photograph them indoors using equally spaced studio lights (Shown above in the first picture and are under $60 on Amazon) to reduce the chance of glare and shadows.  I have the lights attached in the both corners up near the ceiling of the far wall in my studio.   These studio lights also come in very handy when I am taking pictures of products for my Etsy Shop and also provide a nice bright light for me to paint with.  They have really become a great studio tool.


When I am take pictures of my smaller merchandise, I use a large sheet of foam core art board that I purchased at Hobby Lobby. (don't forget they have a 40% off coupon that you can use for every trip) I scored it down the center so it fold up and stores nicely when I'm not using it.  I use the camera on my iPhone X for these smaller product photos and then I pull them into the Photoshop Express app on my phone to crop, adjust lighting to make the white of the background really bright and add a watermark.   For the canvas art, we place the canvas on the white display grid you see here that is attached to the opposite wall of the studio.  My husband takes several shots of the artwork using different shutter speeds.  I pick the photo that has the highest resolution usually to be my original photo.  I hope that gives you some ideas for your own creative space.  Check out my artwork on my website at JulieTownsendStudio.com