exercising the movable medium

On Site 1 - digital art - laptop finger painting - Dan Beck 2007

This is a sketch - on site - still working out the bugs for plein air - where to sit - place the computer - have enough shade? etc.

In some ways embarrassingly, this was done from the passenger’s seat of my car - it was dark enough to see the screen and the wheel wasn’t in the way - so sketching what I saw in 30 to 40 minutes prior to an appointment.

Like a lot of my recent work, this was an exercise - not a bad thing - just trying to get a feel for painting with a laptop and using my fingers instead of a mouse. I subsequently took this piece and worked on it in my normal fashion - sketched turned to fully textured and more developed digital painting- but what a challenge to actually make the digital art better.

This captured what I saw - in a way that couldn’t be done at a later time. I am trying to understand the differences and possibilities here.

See Also

• Three-Finger Exercise - TIME - a review of a 1998 play called “Art” - the language of the reviewer and the content of the play are remarkably in tune with my own
• Another Sunset Sketch - though not done on site - the same kind of quick rendition of a scene - done within moments of viewing
• The subjective truth - article title (My Camera World: What I Saw, My Camera Captured and What My Mind Thought it Saw) - but all art including photography requires interpretation