Experiments in PhotoShop - Why digital art?
I had been an artist at one time - oils, acrylics, watercolor, pastels, etc. I was doing some graphic design - PhotoShop and Illustrator. Then a friend force fed me 6 weeks of in depth studies of some great fine art. I was color correcting for a fine art print shop. With every piece I would think to myself, 'I know I can still do this.'
Well, art is not like riding a bicycle. I had not lost an eye for color or composition. I was exposed to that daily on the job. Unlike a few folks reentering the art world after a long hiatus I could still draw, but painting was a frustrating mess. Classes were going to be a necessity to bring back that skill. In the mean time, I have a medium I know and love - PhotoShop! So lets see what PhotoShop can do.
I began creating abstracts, playing with the transform, distortion and effects to make textures and shapes. It did not take long to learn that compounding these techniques created more depth and texture. I do not use the artistic filters, they do not do what they are labeled. I rarely use the brushes like paint - too tedious. I prefer to create textures that can be shaped, cutout or twisted into something. I make extensive use of features that fill the canvas - render clouds, gradients, pieces of my own photography. I pile distortion features on top of each other in a flurry of image altering layers until an image forms that speaks to me. For some images all that is needed at this point is a minor color correction to accent the form. Some are launched into dozens of tedious hours with the pen tool.
My involvement with the Southeastern Indiana Art Guild has exposed me to some great art in a variety of mediums. It became a challenge to see PhotoShop used to develop more representational images. Florals and animal images evolved fueled by the Guilds inspiration and my constant exposure to nature, always living near the woods.
