music and digital art project

(Tip: select “watch in high quality” link)

Slowly I have been releasing tracks from a cd of music I created last Spring -
Previous articles have included tracks 1, 2, 3 and 4 and one out of order track to be written about again I suspect.This particular track (#5) seemed very conducive to having a visual accompaniment from my art. I have wanted to take on a music and art slide-show movie project for a few years but never gave myself the time or perhaps the permission to try.

I don’t quite understand timing in life - one can contemplate doing something for years and then one day you do and wonder why you waited. Although having said that - I don’t wonder - my life has other priorities and I always have more projects and ideas than I have time to carry out.

Listen or View

Quadbliss.com - thoughts on life - incredibly detailed paintings and partial inspiration for the song

Nothing Is Equal - music track by itself - neither music quality or video quality is particularly good with youtube - will post again after I can figure out the best alternative

More Remote Tree - digital painting for original prints - Dan Beck 2008

When I have painted this tree in the past - it has always been by memory and impression - this is no exception - the seasons have been changing - grasses growing and leaf base is quite a bit stronger.

To me the work has an impressionistic feeling with a rather clear digital component - even if the medium is intended to take a back seat to the content of the painting.

Observing the changing tree over time makes for an interesting group of work - or at least an interesting puzzle and interesting in that each one so far has been created without referencing the previous versions until after completion.

Limits are good - my rules are to not intervene with photos and not try to block my own understanding - hoping to impart the feeling which has prompted the painting in the first place.

See Also

• Original Prints - discussion of digital painting and original nature of prints at Outhouse Studios
  
• An Artist Needs Limits - discussion of the importance of limits for the creative process

Sun Blowin Bye - Dan Beck 2003 - digital painting

As an artist and musician and the person that I am - I always want to do things differently - do it my way - lay down my own tracks, as it were, and be a pioneer.

What I know as a teacher both of others and even myself - repetition is a necessity for being able to improve on the execution of the same subject matter or even new subject matter.

My goal for a new piece of music or artwork is to create something to live inside - but even then, I must keep playing the new work of music - keep painting some of the same old things - keep exploring the same ole medium - keep revisiting the same old works …

I need to see how I view or hear them from where I am today. There are never enough hours to be new and be revisiting - so though I am in a time where I have plenty of new work - though not recorded - plenty of old work - not yet shared - I am revisiting a song I have offered and a digital painting that I have had on my website…

because it is the way I am feeling today - and it is worth it for me to revisit it.

Listen or View

• Can’t Stand Still - original song - Dan Beck / 1danband - 2005 - music is a refuge and can take over - no matter what else is going on
• Original Print Options - for above digital painting - Sun Blowin Bye
• On Repetition - Supercharging Your Affirmations - perhaps even more necessary to repeat when what is learning requires some unlearning as well

Further Along Tree 1 - Dan Beck - digital art painting 2008

This digital painting was finished over a month ago. The previous article showing the version of this painting which felt finished, balanced, and worth saving, - based upon the piece itself and not the original vision; was written over two weeks ago.

I guess it is rather apparent that my writing is not keeping up with my creating. Actually I find everything takes longer than expected - my head is generally way ahead of my physical world - but then that makes sense. How could matter move as fast as thought?

And why do we expect things to take the time we think things will take - even if we have done something before - it might take more or less time - circumstances are always different.

But most of us, including myself, have expectations about how long even things we have never done will take.

The finished painting above matched my concept and vision more closely as well as my expected timeline for doing a painting - there is more texture, more depth, more visual confusion - and more what I had in mind to begin with -

What is wonderful about art and life - is that sometimes the head gets to follow the body - follow the physical world - and sometimes the timetable of the physical world is smarter than the head.

See Also

• Timing Innovative Music - previous article about time and timing and sharing my own creativity
• Time Expectations - though I do not completely share the capitalistic sentiments, I whole-heartedly concur that our expectations affect the timeline of completing a project
• Digital Art Prints - about art prints, digital painting, and what it means for outhouse studios to produce original prints

Further Along Tree - Dan Beck - unsigned - unfinished? - digital art painting 2008

On April fool’s day one should hope for a joke - if I have one for the day - it is unfinished like the piece above - stopped at this point and saved because it looked balanced, finished, and pleasing - but I knew I was not done because I had not portrayed the essential aspects of the tree and background from the impression on that day.

This is also based on the same tree and the same tree - but further along in the season - as well as the pun of further down the road.

As with the other jokes - one might not get that the three trees are one and the same - but then they are not anyway - each day different - changing like us -

if we trusted our senses and not our minds - much if not all, would be unrecognizable when we view what with our minds we consider to be the same thing -

That came out so convoluted sounding - I think the joke may be on me.

See Also

• Digital Art - wide range of definitions and meanings for the term
• Digital Painting - more info on the process of creating at Outhouse Studios
• The opposite conclusion - search result and examples of the slipperiness of perception

Learning a newly written song, getting lost inside the world of a new painting, reading an excellent book are all a bit like falling in love…

I suppose anything which demands the attention such that the world stands still - that time doesn’t feel like it exists, that puts us completely in the moment and doesn’t want to let us go - has that quality.

River Spring Fauna - digital art painting - Dan Beck 2008

The art above is about the view from above - looking out on the valley - seeing the Salinas river - seeing the incredible texture and color of Spring below - that tapestry of color that pulls and mesmerizes - yes nature can pull off the effect of timelessness as well.

In the nature of out of time - and not in the fashion of deadlines - it seemed somehow appropriate on this first day (it was when I wrote this) of Spring to share a song of joy, love, and being lost or perhaps found in the world of timelessness.

Not part of the Red Eye Recordings - it is a track from 2005 CD: 1danband | dansingnew

Listen or View

• Out of Time - as described above - living in the timeless moment - in love, in life - music, words, performance, production - dan beck | outhouse studios | 1danband |dansingnew - 2005
• Keats, “Bright Star”, timelessness addressed - a very nicely done poem analysis - addressing the same kind of issues - and looking at multiple meanings rather than just one
• Digital Painting - a look at the special nature of art at outhouse studios and discussion of terms

Pinnacles 1 - digital art | digital painting - Dan Beck 2008

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of seeing the Pinnacles up close - I have only gone once, only done the one digital painting - and did it in my normal fashion - based the piece on some of the views I saw which left an impression - combined them a little - but mostly painted from the impression they left upon me.

I painted it that afternoon, the images were fresh in my inner view.

The color of the sky - though not remotely real to the day - somehow helped to convey the feeling that these incredible rock formations had on me. The different depths - the incredible tone of colors and the massiveness probably can’t be conveyed in photo or painting, but my intent has always been to capture something more intangible.

It usually works for me - but I am triggering my own memory and I couldn’t possibly know how it reads to someone never having experienced something similar.

See Also

• Digital Art - discussion of the broad meanings of the term and the process at Outhouse Studios
• Impressionist Art Gallery - other works based on glimpse, visual memory, understanding - plus discussion of impressionist art
• Pinnacles National Monument - U.S. Parks service site with most information on this incredible rock formation

Self Portrait - Dan Beck - digital painting 2007

Multiple meanings are to me as much fun as multiple solutions - and generally more obvious than all the different ways to get to a solution to a problem…

and yes I believe there is almost always more than one way to solve any problem.

In most cases, I find myself thinking through all the things that need to be done in a project and try to foresee the obstacles. Somewhere along the line, I got the idea that the most efficient way was the best way.

I am no longer certain that either that is true or that there even is such a thing as the best way. Sometimes the longer route is the better - and most of the time we can not see our way around all the obstacles anyway.

In art and music - I seem to know this. I start and work around the problems as they come up; but in life - I sometimes think I can no more teach myself than I can anyone else …

such is life.

Listen or View

• Don’t Get Ahead of Yourself - track 4 of the Red Eye Recordings | Dan Beck | 1danband - they say “you can’t see the forest through the trees” but if one is only focused on the forest one can’t see the trees either
• Listening - outhouse studios commentary on what this means and the recording process- although it does not touch on my recent assertion that listening is one of the most important things separating music from noise
• Where teaching oneself and listening coincide - this sounds like some young question and answer session - but a good answer and pertinent I think

Horizon 4 - Digital Painting 2006

Having posted the first two tracks of the “Red Eye Recordings” - a music project that is intended to be listened to in order (for the most part) because there is a story to be told; it is time to introduce the third track with some explanation.

The song - “Money is too important” is about the necessity and the change it brings about - the nature of seeking satisfaction from things or consumerism - How much is enough? - always more than one has - and my observations on how often having money changes people.

And of course, having said that - it is my need as well, to have money to live on and continue to produce my art and music.

I am offering these tracks free - and will continue to - but eventually plan on making it possible to contribute to the outhouse studio fund -

The songs are about my observations - about life - about capitalism - about equality - about sickness - about letting go -

It is both too personal and somehow improper to put a price on -

Listen or View

• Money Is Too Important - Dan Beck  2006- to quote the song “I’d like less worrying, though I am not at all bad off, I’d like less worrying, like everyone I’ve known”
  
• Credit to Johnny Mandel and Mike Altman - for MASH melody and lyrical reference - nothing is created in a vacuum and I kept hearing their lyrics and melody in the music
• Horizon 4 - current art print availability for above digital art and its original prints

Rooted Tree - digital art - finger painting - rendering from memory impression - Dan Beck 2008

There are trees like this at one of the places I frequent with my exercise craving dog - it took me a while to notice them.

But like with most things - once one finally sees something - one starts to see the same thing more frequently. Even though I am an artist and probably more observant than most, I am keenly aware of how much of life I miss, until I become finally aware.

Perception, attention, and understanding are all fascinating subjects - I paint from an impression - a memory - quite frequently - knowing that my understanding plays an even bigger role in what I project when painting.

The intention here is not fantasy, but fun and freedom to portray the essential double rooted nature of these trees on the hillside - blasting with my own color but attempting to convey

the beauty and oddness that strikes me and makes me smile when I see them.

See Also

• Composite Nature: A Conversation with Stan Brakhage - an image search result for double rooted nature - found the work rather interesting
• Celebrated Poets - another interesting search result - the top poem seems to even relate
• Digital Art - a look at the wide definitions and usage for the digital art term - and what it means at Outhouse Studios