In coming up with an artist website that has much (or all at the time this was written) of the art labeled as “digital painting” I have had to think through the how and why of doing so much of my work on a computer screen instead of paper, canvas or more traditional mediums. The “how” explains the journey to this point in my art career. The “why” tells all about the reasons I moved on ahead with digital paintings and didn’t go running shouting and screaming back to hand done, or as some would say, “real” art.
Well, it’s all about the image. As I wrote last time my skill with paint and brushes etc. was running far behind what I could envision. I don’t want people to say of my work, “He isn’t very good at presenting his concepts, his execution is really sub-par. Well yeah, that’s true, but his concepts are very good.”
When I was a Graphic Designer, my work was all about ideas and what my designs communicated to the viewer. Even though a design is well executed and attractive, how could it be a successful design if it’s concept is unreadable or unknowable or worse unknowable? It cannot. Graphic Design is visual communication. In Graphic Design color typography, image and text comes together to present an idea or concept.
As I transitioned from Graphic Designer to Fine Artist, I found myself unable to leave behind my design training. For example, I try to keep the elements in a composition crisp and clean. If a color looks muddy or wishy washy or not quite there, I replace or redo the color. If an element is almost in the middle of the page I try to put it right on the middle line (unless there is a good reason to do otherwise). If the elements in a composition are supposed to lead the eye around the page and there is something there that prevents that from happening, I redo or remove that element. It is all about being decisive, making decisions that benefit the image.
So, after all that and maybe you are asking what about the “how” and “why”. Well the how I got to this point was covered in the last post. The why is simple. It’s all about the image.