Turkish Bowls

For "Night Over Erzinga" the director was hoping that we could have a set of Turkish bowls on a tray for a short scene. 

After doing some research I discovered that Turkish pottery is not only intricate and beautiful, but VERY expensive, and totally out of our budget.

I decided instead to make the bowls myself. Unfortunately I missed taking pictures of them before I started, when they were all solid colored plastic and ceramic bowls I purchased at thrift stores for less than $1 each.

The next few images show the bowls close up after the first coat of paint.

 Next I used a white paint pen to outline all of the designs and to add details. 

 I slowly added details by rotating each color through each bowl, so that by the time I switched colors the first bowl is dry and ready for a new one. 

 In the end they turned out very well.
The director had been imagining that the bowls would be empty,and the food would be imagined/implied as this was a memory scene. Once we got into  we discovered that the idea wasn't working and we needed to fill te bowls.

With very little budget remaining I was able to fill the tray with food at the last minute for almost no cost.

with ripped up upholstery foam

 a bag of cheap beans (less than $1 at the grocery store)

 small apples I already had in stock

 my fake raspberries and blueberries from "The Crowd You're In With" (these have appeared in at least 4 shows now)

And some puffed wheat cereal so that the actress had something to physically eat in the short scene. 

Finally filling the whole thing out with some stock plastic grapes so that the bowls didn't looks so tiny on the tray.