My first attempts at painting on the computer

I had never even given a thought to buying a computer. My good friend, Gordon McGowan, who recently passed away, was always after me to get into computer art. Gordon and I go back many years, we even were in business together in 1955, as partners in MDM Studios in Detroit. Gordon was an excellent illustrator and storyboard artist and for the last fifteen years he had been teaching courses in computer art at the Oakland Community College in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Anyway, the thought of creating art on the computer seemed like an absurd idea, I was soon to be enlightened, however.
My advertising clients in New York insisted that I get a computer so that I could deliver my assignments by e-mail because two of my packages had arrived late and another was actually lost. I had to redo the assignment fast, and my client was furious. If I wanted more business I had to buy a computer. I complied and had no more delivery problems. It was a good move, if you miss a deadline in the ad business you can kiss that client goodbye.
During some down time I began to experiment with digital art and I was astounded at the possibilities that this medium opened up and have been hooked ever since.




This is my very first attempt at digital art, an abstract design.


Here is the ninth piece I did, I painted directly over a photograph of my wife, Jeanne, using the Adobe Photoshop 5.0 program.



An abstract rendition of a Chicago street scene which turned out quite interesting.



This is an abstract study of my son Kurt, I painted directly over an old black and white Polaroid photo.



Here is another Chicago scene, I sure had fun with this one.



Another portrait of my wife done in a sketchy, loose technique. I was really beginning to see that the computer medium would open new vistas for me as an experimental art medium.