Saturday, January 24, 2009

New work

Just thought I'd take a brief moment to say that my work that will be going into the APW Arts gallery show (World of Imagination Vol. II, March 6th) is complete. The work is called Stack andPack. I took 5 12"x12" canvases and put together this 5 panel piece. For more info on the show, check out APWarts.com. Enjoy.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Experimentation, Chapter 2: Back to the Stone Age

As outlined in the last article of this blog, I had decided to experiment a little bit with Microsoft Paint. Paint was the first two programs I was introduced to that at all encompassed any kind of artwork that could be done on the computer when I was a kid. I thought it would be interesting to explore the program that was truly down to the basics. I decided to try to draw in the program as similarly to my actual drawing style on paper as possible using Paint and the touch-pad mouse on my computer. It was not a very flexible process, by any means. However, so far I have to say the biggest redeeming quality of the digital age of art is one major tool: the Undo button. Apparently my pen drawing style isn't exactly conducive to Microsoft Paint unless I have a tablet. For the first, I used only the pencil tool. For the second I used the pencil tool with the paint brush tool, and with the fourth I used the pencil and the spray paint tool.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Experimentation, Chapter 1

Recently, through a class, I was put to a challenge: As a painter in the modern world who dabbles/has dabbled in digital media, can I personally make the two media and art forms coexist? The main thing to note about this project is that I'm really not sure if there is an answer for me. While the time table for this project has an end, I think i can say pretty safely that the search never really ends.

Phase 1
of my digital vs traditional experiment-

The first attempt I made at fulfilling the challenge was taking something I had painted and running it through Photoshop. So that I could add interesting photographic qualities, I chose to take a leap of faith and paint on human skin, rather than canvas. Not easy, or fun for that matter, with acrylic paints. I give enormous credit to people who can create a clean, crisp, nice image that way (especially those who do it with ease). After that I decided that I wanted to incorporate digital manipulation by separating the painting from the surface between color and black and white. My models were Sarah Trull and Trevor Heilman.



Next stop, Phase 2: Going back to the stone age with Microsoft Paint