Looking out, looking in

This is one of the most complex images I have created to date.

It utilizes four different key components: a photograph of a woman I took at the Boston Marathon, a scanned image of the movie poster for the film Attack of the 50 foot Woman, a Piranesi print of one of the churches of Rome, an old photo of two women taken in Paris. I then hand-painted the tiny figures in the Piranesi print, modified the tonal and color parameters and integrated the elements together using masking tools. This was not only one of my most challenging pieces but also thoroughly enjoyable. I took a "stream-of-consciousness" approach, letting the images do the conceptual work so to speak. The best way for me to work.

RRMC

This is an image taken in the parking lot of a hospital and subsequently manipulated in Photoshop using the twirl tool as the primary filter, as well as tonal and saturation tools.

Lonely day at Old Silver Beach

This is based on an image I shot at Old Silver beach on Cape Cod, Massachusetts some years ago. It actually began with a sizeable group of people in the frame but what struck me as I worked on modifying the tonal and and color parameters was the melancholy aspect of the picture. I felt all it needed was removing several other characters and so voila! I had my image.

Look into my eye

This image began as a photo of a rock formation taken during a visit to a garden in the Chinese section of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Antifresco

This is a combination old nude study with textured background from a stock photo overlaid with another stock image from Digital Vision.

Digital Goddess

As you can see "Digital Goddess" is another variant of the Brigit Helm image, used in the previous post ("Indentured").

Indentured

This image originated from a still photo of Brigit Helm, the female lead in Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

Painting with pixels

Some years ago I came across a wonderfully insightful guide to producing art with the computer called, oddly enough, Painting with Pixels. I've long since forgotten the author -- and the book is equally long gone I'm sorry to say.

But I mention it as a way to kick off this blog. Because digital art is simply that: painting with pixels. And there's no better way to let your imagination run wild than to pick up a digital imaging editing program such as Adobe's Photoshop or Elements and a Wacom graphics table and have at it.

And if you need inspiration check out the Museum of Computer Art. Don Archer, one of the co-founders of the museum and it's main guru today, is not only a friend and colleague but it a perceptivre student of computer driven artwork.

Every so often I'll try and post a piece of my own digital art, maybe something I've finished or something I'm still working on, like the two pieces below:


These began as simple photos of rocks I came across at Schoodic Point, Maine.

Try this at home!