Susan Derrick

How to Photograph Waterfalls Without an ND Filter You’ve seen those dreamy, silky waterfall photos all over Instagram and Pinterest, and you’re convinced you need to spend a fortune on Neutral Density filters to recreate them. Good news: you don’t. While ND filters certainly help, you can achieve gorgeous long exposure waterfall shots using nothing […]

Few subjects feel as rewarding (or as intimidating) to paint as the sky. Clouds shift, glow, and pile on top of each other in ways that can turn a beautiful canvas into a muddy mess if you rush the layers. In this guide, we walk you through how to paint clouds in acrylic using six

If you have ever delivered a property gallery where the kitchen looks warm and inviting but the master bedroom feels cold and blue, you already know the real problem with real estate editing. It is not about finding one magic filter. It is about consistency across the entire shoot, from the curb appeal exterior to

Mandalas have a meditative quality that fits naturally into interior design mood boards, wall art concepts, and decorative motifs. The good news is you don’t need years of drawing experience to create stunning ones. With Procreate symmetry drawing tools, the app does half the work for you. This guide walks you through the exact settings,

Palette Knife Techniques for Acrylic Painting: 8 Textures to Master Trading your brush for a palette knife is one of the most liberating moves you can make as an acrylic painter. Suddenly, paint becomes sculptural, edges become crisp, and accidents turn into happy textures that no bristle could ever produce. At Acanthus Design Interiors, we

Photographing shiny objects is one of the trickiest challenges in product photography. Whether you are shooting polished brass hardware, glass vases, chrome lamps or glossy ceramic décor for our interior design portfolio at Acanthus Design Interiors, reflections love to ruin the shot. The camera shows up in the surface, the photographer appears as a dark

If you’ve ever stared at a blank document trying to summarize years of creative work into a single page, you already know the truth: writing an artist statement is harder than making the art itself. Curators skim it in under 30 seconds. Grant panels read hundreds of them in a week. Gallery directors decide in

Figma Auto Layout Tutorial: A Beginner-Friendly Walkthrough for 2026 If you have ever resized a button in Figma and watched the text spill out of it, you already know why Auto Layout exists. It is the feature that turns static rectangles into flexible, responsive components that behave like real UI elements in code. In this

If you’re an artist who wants to sell prints, license your work, or simply build a quality digital archive, learning how to photograph artwork for prints is one of the most valuable skills you can develop. The good news? You don’t need a professional photo studio or expensive equipment to get gallery-quality results. At Acanthus

Why Painting Skin Tones in Acrylic Feels So Intimidating (And Why It Shouldn’t) If you have ever tried to paint a portrait and ended up with a face that looks flat, chalky, or unnaturally orange, you are not alone. Skin is one of the most complex subjects to paint because it is never just one