Painted photography is certainly not a new artistic medium. What is painted photography? It's similar to hand-coloring, which refers to any method of manually adding color to a black-and-white photograph, generally either to heighten the realism of the photograph or for artistic purposes. It's also known as hand painting or overpainting. This process was most popular in the mid- to late-19th century before the invention of color photography. Artists would apply watercolors, oils, crayons, pastels, and other paints or dyes to the image surface using brushes, fingers, cotton swabs, or airbrushes. While overpainting is not a new artistic expression, our recent "artist and photographer collaboration" is a relatively new concept... or at least it seems that way from my limited online research. Andy and I have been friends with Ryan and Erica Manthey of Pure 7 Studios for several years (we actually went to high school with Erica). Last fall, Ryan approached Andy about an idea he had for Andy to hand-paint some of his canvas photography. What's funny is that Andy had been thinking about doing the same thing, but hadn't approached a photographer yet. We like the Mantheys and respect Ryan's work, so we felt it was a perfect fit.

The concept is simple:

Ryan takes an awesome photo.
He has the photo printed on a canvas.
He gives the canvas to Andy.
Andy adds paint to turn the photo into an original piece of art.

Ryan and Andy started with two photos: one of the Manthey family and one of a wedding party. These would serve as examples to display in Ryan's photography studio, as well as a personalized gift for Erica! These are the first two products of Ryan and Andy's painted photography collaboration, but there are more to come! In addition to families and weddings, some other ideas include but aren't limited to:

high school senior portraits
new baby
pregnancy
wedding anniversary
vacations
sentimental places
family homes
musicians/concerts
pets

To discuss adding a piece of painted photography to your personal collection, call Pure 7 Studios at (850) 654-6523. Be sure to mention this blog post!

Painted Photography: artist and photographer collaboration