Summing Up

Portrait of an Artist
(with apologies to James Joyce for the title)

There is one question that has almost become a mantra for the digital art class. “Is it art”?
I’ve tried to think through various definitions of “art”. The only definition that seems fairly clear is “a nickname for Arthur”. Most others involve the words “skill” and “esthetics” –but don’t reveal who or what determines what’s esthetic or skillful. While I’m not really any closer to the meaning of “art” – I have some ideas about what an “artist” is.
I know this will sound like one if those jokes where a man is seeking the meaning of life. His search leads him on an arduous journey to a high Himalayan peak to find a Guru who has pondered the meaning of life for 90 years and is said to have the answer. Half dead from the hardship of the journey, the man finally finds the Guru and asks, “What’s the meaning of life?” The Guru says, “Life is a bowl”. The man says, “After all this you tell me life is a bowl – that’s crazy.” The Guru shrugs and says, “OK, so maybe it’s not a bowl”.
“What’s an artist?” To save you the arduous journey (and the airfare to Katmandu) I’ll tell you – (after 90 minutes of thinking about it) I’ve come to the conclusion that an artist is a prism. Ideas pass through society the way light passes through space and the atmosphere. Artists capture these ideas, bend them so other people can see them, and express them in some tangible way. The artist is telling a story, informed by a point of view and expressed with materials available.
As for the materials - if we only had rocks and cave walls we would still have art. If we could paint with electrons on LCD monitors we’d still have art.
As for an artist telling an informed story - maybe “Guernica” illustrates this point. In 1937 the Nazi Air Force bombed the Spanish town of Guernica. Almost immediately Picasso began work on a large abstract mural depicting the tragic carnage. During World War II Picasso was living in Nazi occupied Paris. He was subject to harassment and searches. A Nazi officer, on finding a photo of Guernica in Picasso’s apartment asked, “Did you do that?” Picasso answered, “No, you did.”
OK, so maybe an artist is not a prism but I still think an artist bends the light so other people can see it.

Making Selections Without a Magic Wand - It's Showtime

These are the three images I selected for the show. I think they represent a little bit of evolution in my style and regard for the elements of an image. They also represent different paths towards the "silk screen" feel I was trying to achieve. I've talked about the technical process elsewhere in the blog so I will say a few words about other aspects of the images.

The first one, and perhaps my favorite, is the Caribou Hotel. I completed this one near the beginning of the semester. The background was a sketch imported into Photoshop. I stayed fairly true to the sketch.I was happy with the simple "folk art" , "boxy" feel and the composition. I liked the colors and the seeming simplicity. In fact it took countless hours of stumbling around to get there. Dolly Parton is quoted as having said about herself "it costs a lot of money to look this cheap" - analogously - It took a lot of effort to make this image look simple.
The next image (completed mid semester) was the Greek village alleyway. This was based on a photograph. Again I tried to keep it simple and clean looking. I was going for a "timeless" village scene. I think the evolution in this piece is found in the shadows. I tried to pay more attention to the shadows (around doorway and windows) and light (sunlight brightening the walls at the back of the alley). Even though this was based on a photo I felt more empowered to remove things I did not want and change or add other elements.
The third piece is the ferry coming into Auke Bay. This piece was completed near the end of the semester. Here, too, a photo was the basis for this digital image but I strayed pretty far from the original. The sky, the water, the boat, the mountains are nothing like the original photo (in fact the ferry does not exist in the photo). The step (that I think I made) in this image is the use of light as an element. To me the light in this image is as important and maybe more so than the the mountains, boat, sky or water. All of the drama comes from the light sweeping right to left across the image and involving the mountain peaks and the bow of the boat.
To me these images represent some technique improvements, some happy accidents, and some real places I remember fondly. Is it art? Who knows ? But it was fun.

Scanned line drawing & colorized scanned line drawing

This image started out as a line drawing from my sketch book. It was scanned and imported into Photshop. The line drawing was selected by adjusting the contrast/brightness. An alpha channel was created by copying the image, deselecting, pasting, inverting the image, placing it on a "layer". The lines were selected by deleting the background. On this clean layer I used selection tools (lasso, and wand) to select shapes. Shapes were colored using the fill bucket and gradient tool.
I was surprised by the reaction of several people to the line drawing - they felt it was the product of a troubled mind (and that psychoanalysis might be indicated) . However, some of the same people really liked the colorized version. The most common reaction to the colorized version has been a short quizzical laugh - which is the reaction I was going for. Just don't ask me what it means.

Photoshopping Around

This image was created in Photoshop by importing a photo of Fritz Cove looking towards the Chilkats in the far distance. The island on the right is Suedla. In the middle distance is Portland Island. There was no ferry in the photo (that was added as a freehand selection) and all of the colors were changed to give the picture a bit of "a end of day - moon rise" feel. The final image has about 15 layers. I was going for reflected red glow on the water by using the gradient tool on the water layer. On a separate layer (above the Chilkats layer) I put some yellow highlights (fading sunset). On the sky layer I also used the gradient tool to create the moon in the upper left.

More playing with Painter (Vincent Van Oystercatcher)

This image started out as a photograph taken on a kayak trip this summer. The photo of the Oystercatcher was cropped and imported into Corel Painter. The photo was placed in the background (in Painter). For the most part I used oils and the impressionist and Van Gogh brushes in Corel and just painted over the background. I was trying for a "Van Gogh-ish" look - I don't think I really got there. I think probably some things are just better left to real paint and canvass.

Test of various Corel Painter X brushes

This image was done in class. It was completely done using Corel Painter. There was no imported background. I used the "ink pen" to outline shapes. I then experimented with various shapes and sizes of brushes. You can see the the air brush, and various artist brushes. I used various "paints" as well. You can see the oils on the background layer. I used the "liquidfy" feature to smear the background.

Devil's Club Painted

This image was created in Corel
Painter by importing the "colorless" Photoshop image below. I "selected" for areas of similar light(shades of gray) and then used Corel Painter watercolors and bushes to paint the selected areas. One problem that I encountered when I enlarged the image was the loss of"sharpness". I think all the selecting and importing cost me some of the "prickly -ness" of the Devil's club - which, after all, is its most endearing quality. I was hoping to play the "sharpness" of the thorns off against the "softness" of the water colors - but it didn't quite work in a larger format.