Old Masters - Frugal Still Life Photography

I am a few weeks behind in Cheryl's Frugal Still Life Photography class, but I've been playing with my camera today and should be caught up by the end of this week. I have to admit that the week four materials had me stumped as Cheryl encouraged us to try out the various metering modes on our cameras and try for a look that imitates the "old masters" images. I did look up how to use the metering modes on my camera, however I honestly couldn't tell a difference in my photos. So I'm just going to share the set-ups I tried out in my attempt to create an image in the style of the old masters.

I started with The Complete Sherlock Holmes tome and added two Civil War figures and a gold creamer. If you look closely, you can see the reflection of the camera in the creamer, so I decided that was not going to work.

I switched it out for a brown teapot, which I liked much better.

Then Robbie called on his lunch hour and asked what I was up to and commented that it might be better to use the magnifying glass with the Sherlock Holmes book. He also told me where I could find a toy double-decker bus on the toy shelves. So, I tried this arrangement.

The next week's lesson talks about complementary colors, so I thought I might add some green in with all those reds/maroons, but I really didn't like this one at all.

And finally I grabbed a couple of mini-books from the shelf for this arrangement. (I actually changed my mind about using this set-up for week five's lesson and will be sharing my photo with complementary colors in a separate post.)

After viewing all these on the computer, I'm not really sure I've captured the essence of the old masters. However, I chose my favorite one and added two of Cheryl's textures and think this final image comes somewhat close.

I'm also linking up with Helena's Zoom In/Zoom Out this week with this shot of my setup. I leaned a mat board against the wall for my background and added a square of cloth from India for the base of my photos. I opened the front door to let in the afternoon sunlight.

Please let me know what you think of these images! Do you have a favorite? Would the old masters kick me right out the door?