Myerson Photo Blog

As much as I love to create Vetta-worthy content, sometimes we have to face the ugly truth that the portfolio needs some filler. Not bad work – I hope we never upload that – just work that is more utilitarian and less creative or artistic in nature. These are the brush strokes, the isolated fire extinguishers, the background textures. There are ways to do these kinds of images well, of course, and that should be the baseline standard. But once you’ve got the pure white background, and effective lighting to create dimensionality and form, the shot is the shot.

That’s what today in the studio will be about. Simple, usable, workhorse images. Maybe even a cliche or two.

Stone wall texture

I’ve been trying to come up with a cheap and somewhat realistic stone wall background. You may be looking to do this for your own photography backgrounds, or for theater productions, for Halloween decorations, or even for a very different kind of wall surface for a kids room. For me, this was for a photography background. I don’t think this is it yet, but it’s getting close. Here’s how I got there.

First off, the materials and equipment. The surface is a 4×8′ piece of EPS foam. This is the standard home insulation foam available at all home improvement big box stores. I went with the inch and a half thickness, because I knew I wanted to be able to cut some deep grooves between the rocks. Depending on where you live, there will be different kinds of EPS foam available. Here in Arizona, it’s simply the sheets of white Styrofoam. Other parts of the US will have big pink or blue sheets. Each is slightly different, and I believe the pink and blue are easier to work than the white, but you play the hand you’re dealt.

Next – and most important – is the foam cutting system. I went with the Hot Wire Foam Factory pro system (this one, specifically). It’s not the cheapest way to go, but I’ve used it for a number of projects already, and I wouldn’t change a thing. Ever hear the expression “like a hot knife through butter”? That’s what you get with this. The foam carves away beautifully. It takes some practice to get the cuts you want, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a great system.

Finally, I picked up some paint – 2 cans of black spray paint, a gallon of a medium gray, and a quart of a light gray. Your home improvement center can color match paint for you from those little paint chip samplers. That is definitely the way to go. If you end up building a second wall section, you’re going to appreciate the ability to go back to The Depot to get another can of exactly the same color.

So lets get carving. One important note about this step is to make sure you have adequate ventilation. The melting foam stinks and breathing it in can’t be all that good for you. The first thing I did was to layout the lines between the stones. I tried to keep it pretty regular, with just a few irregularities. Depending on the look you’re after, you may want to go very rigid, or very loose.  Once the mortar lines were drawn in, I grabbed the Hot Wire cutter and carved them out. I used a combination of the straight knife and the freehand router to cut the deep grooves.

Next was the irregular stone texture. This is the part that I thought would have the biggest impact on the final look. It matters, of course, but not as much as the paint job does. So the bottom line is not to stress too much about this step. I just tried to make the surface irregular. I used a variety of techniques, including dragging the router, using the side edge of the knife tool, and gouging with the router. The good thing about rough stone is that it’s a very forgiving look. You can use a variety of techniques and still get the effect.

With the blocks defined, and the texture cut in, it was off to the paint room. First I covered the whole thing with a pass of the black spray paint. Most important is to cover the deepest grooves. With that done, I grabbed a paint roller, and covered the whole thing with my medium gray. The paint roller doesn’t go into the deepest grooves, of course, so they stay black. It also doesn’t get into all of the shallower texture “valleys”, so I did some stiff brush touch up afterwards. \

Once that was dry, I opened the light gray and dry brushed that on. This is the step that really brings the piece to life. Dry brushing is when you scrape most of the paint off the brush and lightly pass over the surface of the workpiece. This has the effect of depositing paint only on the highest points of the texture. Starting from the top of the stones and brushing downward, I was able to create a very realistic texture effect very quickly.

The last step was one more pass of the black spray paint, pointing up from the bottom of the piece. This has the opposite effect of the highlight dry brushing; it creates the shadows under the “mountains”

(I didn’t take enough in-progress images when I made this piece, so I’ll make another one soon and take pictures along the way to illustrate this article.)

All in all, I like the result, but there are a few things I’ll do differently next time. I’m not thrilled with the brick pattern I used – the irregularities look too planned for my taste – so I’ll try to make it look more realistic in that regard. The texturing is improved by the paint job, but the base texture work could still be refined more. I also want to do a little more finishing work to the piece: I’d like to spray it with a matte finish to protect it without giving it too much shine, I want to add in some small rocks and perhaps vegetation in some of the crevices, and I have plans to include some shackles and/or torches coming off the wall, so I’ll need to devise a mounting system for that.