Digital Painting

Artist's Statement: 

The main idea was to create a digital painting of a photograph that was taken by you, using Photoshop, specifically the paint bucket fill tool and the brush tool. I came up with the idea to use lines as colour guides by looking at the artsonia examples of some other students. I started out doing something hyperrealistic, where I would use my cursor to paint small swatches exactly as they were in the photo but a bit more stylized. I realized I was taking way to much time to finish my painting, so I decided to start over with a new idea, which is the now final result. I think that with computerization and AI taking over digital art more and more, this idea of using lines as guides really helped in keeping my own individuality in the final result.

The materials I used were Photoshop, an Ipad, and an apple pencil. These are materials that I find really challenging, because there is a certain disconnect from actual materials in them that I find make them hard to manipulate. However, I have used Procreate before with an apple pencil, so I was able to pick it up fairly quickly. I chose to use an ipad instead of my cursor because I feel more familiar with an apple pencil and think it made it easier to make clean lines. Especially in these modern times, I think it is very important to know how to use Photoshop and similar tools in the art world. This means that while I would not have chosen these tools for this project myself, I think it was still a good experience to be limited to them. 

As mentioned above, this project when through some transformations. I started out with one idea, and then had to switch to another one because of time issues. I think that this process of coming up with solutions when there is a problem with what you are doing now is a good exercise. I really believe that it builds good habits of flexibility in our art visions, and I think that is important, especially when making commercial art.