More whimsey for the New Year

Having fun with an old art school ad that ran in 1934. I changed the illustration and messed with the Mona Lisa. Sorry, Leonardo.


WAITING FOR AMEDEO
That's Diego Rivera on the couch and me cuddling one of Modigliani's ladies. This is actually a collage created from several of Modigliani's paintings.


DAVINCI INVENTS THE CONCEPT OF THE STORYBOARD
Another collage made up of several of DaVinci's drawings. Leonardo's work lends itself well to this type of nonsense.


LEONARDO TAKES TIME OUT FROM HIS BIRD FLIGHT STUDIES TO DO A QUICK SKETCH OF ONE OF THE DELGIOCONDO SISTERS
Again, Those are some of Leonardo's drawings used in the background.


MATISSE AND HARRY PAINT NUDES
The dream of a lifetime, painting with Matisse !


FRANCIS BACON'S STUDIO AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF HIS CLEANING WOMAN
Have you ever seen a photograph of Bacon's studio ? It's far worse than what I have pictured here.


HARRY HAS TROUBLE WITH THE PROGRAM POLLOCK 1.2.0
When I tell my non-artistic friends that I paint on the computer, this is what they visualize.


These images are from my book DIGITAL DREAMS available from Xlibris.com Bookstore. They have been exhibited as limited edition prints in galleries as well as art centers. All these images were created on the computer.

The funny side of fine art

In this book are cartoons based on my observations of the fine art business. The book is available through Xlibris.com Bookstore. I should do a similar book on the advertising business.



















These cartoons were all created on the computer. I start by scanning in a Pentel pen drawing or sketch and then add the color using the Photoshop Elements 2.0 program.

Early New Year's hangover

I suppose things are always in some kind of turmoil. Above is a New Year's poster that I did forty years ago when we were also in a real mess.



Here's a close up of me wondering how we ever were going to get out of that mess in 1968. Well, we managed, and in time we'll manage this one as well.

Another digital collage

In my December 13th post, CREATING A DIGITAL COLLAGE ON THE COMPUTER, I diagramed how the layer system works in Photoshop. Here is another digital collage done using several elements. I did this as a demonstration for for Sue Wilczak who was the curator for the Krasl Art Center at the time. She was proposing an exhibition of my computer art and was interested to see how I create some of my images. I invited Sue over and took her through the various stages of creating a digital collage.



First I did the sketch of the nude figure using a Pentel pen on layout paper. Then I gathered up a few related items from books and my own photo files. Flowers, old engravings of birds, fish and even a stamp from a letter my cousin sent me from Tahiti were all scanned into the computer. The palm trees were from an illustration for a travel brochure done years ago. The elements were resized on the computer as the composition developed. After positioning everything to my satisfaction I added the colors and did some minor alterations.



Here is the finished piece. All these elements were composed and colored in layers on the computer. The whole process took about three hours. Check my December 13th post to remind you exactly how Photoshop layers work.



I have been working on my Comic Book Cover Parodies and adapted this art for the series by adding the ship, word balloons, captions and the logo.



These are some of the posters that I designed for the exhibition. A variety of my digital work was exhibited and the audience showed a great deal of interest in this new medium, asking a lot of questions about the process.



The poster above shows one of my digital abstractions which is actually a collage made up of pieces of other images that I have done, an interesting technique.

Happy Holidays !

Digital fun with Lady Godiva

One of my early experiments with digital art. I couldn't resist Lady Godiva as a subject because she offers so many possibilities for creative images. This sketch was rendered with a mouse using the Photoshop 5.0 program. In the near future I am going to try some sketches and paintings using the Wacom tablet and pen which is probably a better way to create an image like this.


LADY GODIVA'S BOYFRIEND

The above image and the two below are part of a series of twelve early computer experiments that I did. The top two are a combination of an old engraving of a horse skeleton and a couple of photos. I had fun creating the abstract designs in these pieces.




This image was done by drawing the image with the Photoshop Pencil Tool. Just one of the many ways to create interesting images with the computer medium.



Here are all twelve of the Godiva studies. Experimenting like this with several versions of an idea can be a great way to hone your design and compositional skills. To do the same thing using traditional painting mediums would be a very tedious process.



A different concept of the same theme, this time Lady Godiva falls off her horse. I added the high heels for fun. This version inspired the acrylic painting below. Often my computer experiments spark ideas for my paintings.



This painting of Lady Godiva was done for my EROTO exhibition of figure studies at the Craig Smith Gallery last June. Below is the invitation for the exhibition.

Digital figure studies

Here is an abstract figure created on the computer. I love to do this type of experimental study as often it inspires ideas for paintings in traditional mediums. These studies are relatively easy to accomplish on the computer. This one is actually a collage, for the white areas I actually used parts of photos of a piece of sculpture that I had done. All of these studies were done when I first began experimenting with digital art using Photoshop 5.0



A further, more realistic development of the above study. I used more photos of my sculpture for the black background shapes.



This is a negative of the above piece which was easily accomplished by pressing the Control and i keys. I changed the eyes and mouth to create more of a realistic image.



Another figure study, again using parts of photos of my sculpture in the background. When doing studies like these don't be afraid to work loosely, the sketchy lines in this study actually add interest and life to this painting.



A study in design that works quite well using a loose, sketchy rendering style on the figures and contrasting that with the harsh black shapes.



Another loosely rendered figure study contrasted with color design shapes. The crow is based on a photo that I took as it sat in my backyard. It must have hit a tree branch or something because it seemed to have a damaged wing, eventually it was able to fly off.



Here is the negative version of the above painting. The reason I keep stressing that the computer is a great learning tool should be apparent from these and the other studies I've shown you. In a relatively short time an artist can create several versions of an image for evaluation purposes. Also with this medium an artist can try any wild, crazy color combinations and if they don't work they can easily be changed.