Experiments in Digital Art.

25 Oct

A few weeks ago I read about an artist who usually painted in oils and had moved to painting digitally. They painted the same subject matter using the same process and brush techniques but created the paintings digitally.

They explained that working digitally meant that they didn't need to store and replenish expensive materials, less waste was produced, they had a fume-free environment to work in, they could work almost anywhere as they didn't need a designated studio space, storing finished work was convenient with easy access to it and didn't require physical space, and print editions were much easier to prepare and resize.

My initial reaction was, “Yes, but…”! I had an uncomfortable feeling about it but the more I questioned this feeling I found that I couldn't come up with a reasonable argument against art created digitally. This realisation was a bit uncomfortable in itself but it was one of the things I pondered while on my working holiday. The more I thought, the more I could appreciate the positives, to the point where I decided to experiment in making art digitally. Here are my first experiments.

To ease myself in to this new way of working I started with a physical pastel or watercolour painting, which I wasn't happy with but had potential, and used that as an underpainting to work on digitally. The underpainting is on the left in all these pics and the final piece is on the right.