Rob Nevitte wins the
Dumas and
Winsor & Newton
Painting Awards
Shows
The Vienna Arts
Treasury
of Art Show coming up
in mid-November
cards
A look at how they used
the camera back then
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Using Digital Technology as Artistic Inspiration
Recomposition of digital photo
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by Rob Nevitte
Digital photography is largely replacing film because of it's
convenience, low cost, and quality. The implications for the artist
are far-reaching. Since no film development time is required, many
images can be taken in a short time and viewed, modified, printed, and
most of all, used for artistic inspiration. Images may be quickly and
accurately enlarged through the projection process. This replaces the
old methods of composition enlargement such as the tedious and time
consuming use of a grid technique.
Digital Art Processing
can significantly raise an artist's awareness of many new possibilities
to their artistic development, while awakening a whole new way to look
at, compose, and appreciate more mind-expanding art.
Requirements:
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Digital camera
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Computer (Windows Operating System with reasonably good performance)
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Photo editing capability (i.e. Photoshop)
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Inkjet Printer with transparency capability
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Overhead Projector for creating larger images
(The last two items above can be repIaced by a digital projector, which connects directly to the computer.)
I use the following tools (some of these are older models and have been replaced in the manufacturer's lineup - alas, we must keep up with technology):
A Process:
Digital images from the camera are loaded onto the computer through
its USB connection. Hard copy images, such as sketches, may be scanned
in by using the printer's flat bed scanner option.
Selected images are loaded into the Photo editing software. This is when the magic of DAP
occurs: you control the recomposition of the image by cropping,
zooming, or thru the application of a wide range of effects that can soften, texturize, colorize, blur, sharpen, or imitate
various artistic media, such as chalk, oil paint, water effects, edge
enhancement, grouping with other images, resizing, etc. These effects
may enhance the image to an artist's eye, and suggest new and
unexpected compositional possibilities for the image. This can be of
great value to both the beginner and experienced artist.
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An
altered image can be reloaded and modified
again, any number of times. This process may encourage experimentation as the various possibilities are
investigated. A well-designed unaltered photo image may require less rework. But an artistic filter, such as Photoshop's smart blur, can lead you in interesting directions. Also take advantage of transparent gradients and layers in Photoshop to help with your color management.
Note that the above filters can be used additively, i.e., "stacked" one on top of the other indefinitely. It is up to you, however, to retain interim copies of the results for your own image management.
Once the images(s) are ready for printing and projection, the
printer is loaded with inkjet transparency film. Printing size is important
because the standard overhead projector has a minimum projection
enlargement factor, which is about three times the size of the original
as it appears on the transparency film itself. (The maximum
enlargement size is limited only by how far you can move the overhead
projector from the projection surface.) Once the transparency film
that has the printed images is placed on the projector bed, and the
projected image has been aligned onto the paper, canvas, etc., the
projected image can be traced directly onto the painting surface, which
completes the process. At this point, the artist proceeds with the
finishing of the artwork thru traditional means. The possibilities are endless...
"The Blue Barn" Digital Photograph, cropped and repainted digitally
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"Country View" Digital Photo processed |
"Grainery" Digital Photo, reduced to black and white, and repainted digitally
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Click the images below
for a larger view:
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