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Digital Paintings
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Message
Posted
Hi Pat, I really enjoyed the seascape demo on your website. Very good and a very painterly approach. I've had a go with "Sketchbook" on my MacBook Pro and didn't like it at all. It tried to invade my computer every time I switch on. I've found Photoshop Elements a lot more versatile and not as complicated as full blown Photoshop.
I forgot to mention that using someone else's image, without permission, manipulating it and then calling your own is illegal, regardless of whether or not it is done for money. We as artists, or photographers, have a right to control how are images are manipulated and displayed and our copyright remains with us unless we sign it away.
Posted
I am a a species of life form slowly becoming endangered. All I've ever learned came from reading a million books, mental arithmatic and pencil/pen and paper. I've loved it and it's only taken me 77 years to refine my current model. Now, my grandkids can lose and find me on anything internet related, answer any question in seconds using Google and their ever present and expensive mobile phones and do the most complicated maths the same way in miliseconds. Typing? piece of cake, they do it with two thumbs. I really do wish though, just for once I could collect all these super brains together, put them in a room with just pen and paper and ask them questions (sometimes on the simplest things), ask them to draw/paint a picture or work out a simple shopping bill total. Can watercolours, oils or accrylics really be truly called that without water, oil or compounds involved? Who has really progressed, man or machine?
As for digital art, why not just call it digital art then everyone will know what it is? It's fine as an art form, it's just that the Constables', Gainsboros' Turners and Van Goghs need a bit of seperation and recognition from Mr Samsung, Toshiba and all those other electronic geniuses. Live and let live, but call a spade a spade like we've always done. Amen. (-:
Posted
It occurs to me that much of the discussion in this thread centres not around whether digital art can be considered art but around the wider interpretation of that awful word art; a word I try to avoid using as much as I possibly can because of the truckload of cultural judgements it tends to drag along behind it. Creative is another one. It also seems to view art as merely(?) the end product; an object; an object of reverence. I like the attitude that Dennis has; they’re just paintings, that’s all.
The author of Ways of Seeing, John Berger died recently, he wrote the book in the 1960s before the advent of digital art as referred to in this thread. However I think some of the basic ideas in the book are relevant, at least as a frame of reference; as a means of ‘seeing the eye that we see with’.
A friend of mine once said, as we stood watching a particularly spectacular sunset, “Look at that…I can taste it”. Now I knew what he meant but I didn’t feel that I could ‘taste it’ in the way that he did; I rely—probably too much—on my visual sense.
Turner’s explorations into what we now refer to as impressionism were motivated by the need to explore a different way of seeing the world. And the results were dismissed and trivialised in much the same way as some have trivialised digital imaging here. It seems to me foolish and narrow-minded to suggest or imply that (for example) Van Gogh and countless others would not at least have explored the use of digital imaging had they had access to it. In his book/TV documentary Secret Knowledge David Hockney demonstrated how many of the ‘old masters’ used—or at the very least knew about—mirror-lens projection as a drawing aid. Although I have a limited appreciation of much of Hockney’s work, what I admire greatly is his tireless interest and curiosity about the visual world, his interest in different Ways of Seeing. And he’s 80 years old this year.
His joiner pictures (the Grand Canyon joiner is referred to here, but it is one of many) arose out of his curiosity about different ways of seeing; more specifically that the camera is an artificial way of ‘seeing’ the world; the world does not have a 3 : 2 rectangle around it. We simply do not experience the world this way. The joiners were a means of exploring multiple-viewpoint alternatives, using photography.
I draw, I paint, I use Photoshop and I use Illustrator. Whichever method I use, my motivation is largely around the notion of exploring the visual world. When I draw I explore the visual in a way that is different from when I paint or use Photoshop or Illustrator—and I’m deliberately avoiding using the ‘different tools’ cliché because it’s just that, a cliché, and leaves more unsaid than said. Johnk7 hints at the main ‘difficulty’ with digital imaging—it’s just not wet enough.
To put a few things on track perhaps, I suggest—
the computer/software, no matter how sophisticated cannot do anything on it’s own; it has no ideas; it does not see the world at all.
The printing process of Giclée printing is only marginally comparable to that of a desktop printer. Typically it is a twelve-colour process using archive quality pigments and done on archive quality paper. And a good Giclée print maker will be a member of the Fine Art Trade Guild.
Accidentals are possible in digital imaging. Although not the same as (for example) wet-on-wet happy accidents are very possible through the use of various techniques, one of which (blending modes) is referred to in the Heather Adams piece.
A digital image that is no more than running a digital filter or two over a photograph may be intriguing for a few seconds but although much, much quicker, is equally as shallow as recreating a painting as an exact duplication of a photograph.
Fine art print-makers (aquatints et al) produce limited edition prints and we trust that the print we buy is number 4 of 20 and that there will not be a 21; the same is true of digital print-making.
As a post script, JPEG is an abominably poor file format to use for any serious digital imaging.
Posted
Marjorie—for some while I’ve been trying to move towards a more expressive/semi-abstract approach in my painting. It’s harder work than I feel it ought to be; I wonder if I might find it easier if I too could taste the colours. But as I said, I seem to be almost totally reliant on the visual sense. Any suggestions as to how I can develop my ‘taste’ for colour?
Pat—your last statement I’m unsure about (without the non-verbals); are you posing it as a question? Or should I read the …you… in the sense of …one…?
I’ll assume it’s the latter. I believe that, professionally speaking, they are indeed referred to as digital artists. I’ve done some work with 3-D imaging software and although the software does what might be called the donkey work, the ‘drawing’ and ‘painting’ processes can be compared to drawing/painting with traditional media—in that respect it is just another tool. My work with the software was quite basic but it did show me that although complex matters such as how light is reflected/refracted etc. from different surfaces is determined by the algorithms, the user has to make the initial decisions, settings etc. from options that are mind-numbingly numerous. I believe that this can be compared quite directly to, for example, the choice of surface, colour palette, colour mixing etc. in traditional media; it’s not the same but it is comparable. And, of course, such epics as Lord of the Rings rely heavily, in the early stages of development, on storyboarding, often done on paper.
Posted
Haven't given a thought to the Forum since before Christmas so today I was surprised to find this thread has been extended by John Petty's contributions. You are very welcome John and thank you raising the level of discussion on the Forum.
Like Marjorie I welcomed David Hockney's 'History of Pictures' I'm reading it as a Kindle download. I think it was subtitled 'From cave art to the iPad'. so that can be taken as confirmation that the iPad is a reliable artistic tool for making pictures.
I don't think it will displace traditional forms of making pictures. I'm fortunate to belong to a friendly Art Group with 30 members who meet each Wednesday in a local village hall. We paint for the sheer enjoyment and relaxation. For those who want to show their paintings we have use of the walls of the waiting room in the local GP's surgery. No pressure to meet exibition deadlines. We have a tutor who visits fortnightly. He is a painter/printmaker which I like. I'll have to take my iPad to one of his session for advice.
I've rambled on a bit but at least I've mentioned use of the iPad twice.
Posted
Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN2b8I9Yylw
Now that really is the end !!
Posted
This thread is a bit like my wife saying goodbye to her friends - I have even been known to remove my shoes and coat which I had put on in anticipation when she first said 'we'd better be off now' and return to a comfy sofa - only to be accosted half an hour later with the immortal words 'Aren't you ready yet?'
Edited
by MichaelEdwards
Posted
Not quite Michael. I didn't start this thread thank goodness and I'm appalled by the way members have treated it. I have no particular interest in promoting digital painting on the Forum clearly it has only a minority interest at the moment but it's a developing method of picture making. Sylvia coined the phrase 'some do some don't' in respect of digital painting it would be better if those 'who don't' staye.d away.
I do strongly .object though when a member who has no real interest in digital media posts a Specsavers advertisement showing an image of the Mona Lisa digitally defaced and calls it amusing. Leonado's portrait is one of the great masterpieces of European Painting. As such it should be respected and not trivialised. As ever the thread has degenerated into trivia and silliness which shows a both a lack of interest in the topic It also shows scant respect for 'Landscapeart' who started the thread.
Edited
by robK2
Posted
I have been criticised in the past for saying this but it does seem to me that, as far as Joe and Josephine Public are concerned—and I acknowledge that I am generalising here—the criteria that they bring to bear when looking at a work are to a great degree concerned with two points of reference; one is the evident level of manipulative skill with the tools/medium (I wish I could do that) and the other is the degree to which the work looks realistic. “…it looks just like a photograph…” is praise often given as though it were the highest possible accolade. It begs the question what does it offer that a photograph doesn’t?
That said then, this dude’s work would be art of the highest esteem I think. And it’s digital. And what if offers that a photograph doesn’t is very obvious. Does it matter that it is produced entirely for commercial purposes?
http://www.khulsey.com/royal-caribbean-empress-of-the-seas.html
The other side of the coin, maybe, although it’s a laboured metaphor, is Hockney’s joiner pictures. I lived in the Leeds-Bradford area for many years and made frequent visits to the Salt’s Mill Gallery where I was able to study many of the lesser-known joiners. Skill level with tools/medium? Minimal, as they were produced by traditional chemical photography and processed/printed by the local ‘Supasnaps’ in Los Angeles. “All” that Hockney did was to collage them together; but what an exciting way of looking at the world.
https://photomuserh.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/david-hockney-photography-will-never-equal-painting/
The digital work of Kevin Hulsey is truly remarkable and without doubt it does its job exceedingly well, but it is also lacking something. Hockney’s joiners are also remarkable although for different reasons and they are also lacking. And I use the joiners as a vehicle for a kind of counter-argument merely because they were referred to early-on in this thread.
To repeat my entry into this discussion It occurs to me that much of the discussion…centres not around whether digital art can be considered art but around the wider interpretation of that awful word art. And that's as it should be.
I think it was Frederick Nietzsche—but I'm probably wrong—that said something about the difficulty of seeing the eye that we see with. Bricks and sharks come to mind perhaps.
Posted
I don't involve myself in digital art simply because I love the painting process, albeit I am skilled in all the main software programmes having used them extensively in my career as a graphic designer.
However, just because I don't do digital doesn't mean that I can't appreciate or indeed have an opinion and as such I will continue to voice that opinion as and when I want and no one will tell me otherwise.