September 25th, 2006 by admin
image fits watercolor paper by design - gives unique look
photo of Art Print from digital painting Mound 2 Mountains
This is a photo of a 13 x 19 inch print of my most recent digital painting. I wanted to show how it fills the page. The size of the digital painting was designed to fit this size paper with the smallest margin possible on the Outhouse Studios in house printer.
It curves in because the camera wasn’t perfectly centered - I didn’t take the proper time on this one - sorry. But nevertheless, I think it gives an idea of how a print can look. I think the thin border of white is actually pretty cool and shows off the uniqueness of the digital medium.
For art prints of this digital painting, please email: specialorders@outhousestudios.net.
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September 25th, 2006 by admin
Using the shortcuts which painting on computer allows
Early Stages of Mound 2 Mountains - before and after fill-in
I am not opposed to taking some of the shortcuts which painting on a computer allows. The difference between the left image and the right image is a click of a button.
It also required some palette development which has taken quite some time - and some experimentation to be sure that the fill color was the right choice.
If you look on the right hand side of either image, you will notice a crease in the mountains. Though it is not my main method of working, I do occasionally like to copy a section of a piece and paste it in the right location. It can create depth and a look that would take three times as long if every aspect of a piece were completely from scratch.
This is the digital medium and this is one of the reasons I find digital painting (and its accompanying art prints) as fun as I do.
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September 20th, 2006 by admin
digital medium conducive to representing layers of water washed sand
Beach Today - digital painting / art prints - Dan Beck 2003
I wrote about this piece in July. One of the things I like about the new Blog Guide by Images is that I can keep track. If I do choose to write about the same digital painting again, I can be sure to write from a different angle.
Today I am writing because I was lucky enough to be at the beach yesterday. And today, I clicked on the gallery chance button which landed me in the Landscape Art Galley - clicked on the image roulette button which took me to this painting.
While I was looking at the water and sand yesterday, I was thinking how conducive the digital medium is for portraying the beach and the layers where the water has washed.
I was also thinking that I had not done that many pieces of the beach and well…
I better go more often.
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August 18th, 2006 by admin
early exploration expresses concept and aesthetic with ease
Rain Over Fall - digital painting / art prints - Dan Beck 1999
This is a piece from my personal archives - it is was one of my earlier explorations with the medium.
I like this piece conceptually as well as aesthetically. There is little form. Mostly color expresses the concept of autumn rain and autumn leaves.
I would estimate that I created this piece in about an hour or so. Most of the digital paintings I do now take closer to four or five hours.
The time spent doesn’t necessarily make a piece better. But it does indicate that I have developed a larger vocabulary with the digital medium and can therefore say more.
The thing that most people don’t take into consideration when judging how long something took to make - is how many hours of work it took to get to the point to make that piece.
There is nothing wrong with judging a work of art by its complexity - but I think it is a shame when people miss out on appreciation because of a conceptual framework.
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July 7th, 2006 by admin
overlapping color gradients - unique to digital painting
Blue Mountains - digital painting /art prints - circa 1998
This is one of my earlier digital paintings - not sure exactly when it was done. What I like about this piece is its translucent character.
At the time, I did not have an easy way to add texture, but I had found I could overlap color gradients in such a way as to almost look like stained glass - not that stained glass really overlaps.
I still like creating work that is both abstract and representational - this one was one of the first with the digital medium. Prior to that, everything was abstract because for me there is no pressure whatsoever when creating work that is non representational. There is nothing for the work to be compared to and it is a great place to learn how to control the medium.
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July 5th, 2006 by admin
zoomed in view needed to work sections of digital art
Section of current digital painting - view 1 pixel hole in center
I started working on a new digital painting this morning. A dreary kind of overcast summer day here - perfect for that sort of thing.
While I was working on it and enlarging the piece close to 400% - I thought it might be interesting to share what that looks like - and therefore a sense of how peculiar it can be to work with this digital medium.
Creating art on a computer can be very quick in some ways. There are tools which can create gradients, complex textures, lines, curves, fills, etc. However, certain things can be quite tedious.
For the look I want in this particular piece - I must work with the piece enlarged and must go back and forth with the size of the view. Often times even working at the largest level adjusting a single pixel.
It is fun to be able to see from different angles - stepping back, stepping in - but it is also tiring - as I am taking a break to write this.
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June 15th, 2006 by admin
appreciating light and energy of an older digital painting
Flying Thru Sunfire - digital painting - circa 1998
What is new about an older digital painting?
I guess anything old can be looked at new. I think of myself as being pretty observant, but found myself just yesterday noticing something for the first time, which had been that way for over a year.
There is freedom in this piece which I love. I didn’t know the digital medium or program, so I didn’t have to prove anything. And when I say this, I mostly mean to myself.
For now when I do a new digital painting, I have expectations regarding my skill with the medium. I have expectations about subtlety of line and texture which I did not even know were possible when the piece above was created.
Viewing today, Flying thru Sunfire - a title which I understand just as little as then - has wonderful light and energy - and I enjoy getting lost in it.
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June 9th, 2006 by admin
digital medium and image size give art print gratification
Pickin’ Start - digital painting / art prints - Dan Beck 2006
This is the most recently finished digital painting I have. It is formatted to be wide and fit a 13×19″ watercolor paper with next to no margin.
Most of my recent work has these pixel dimensions. After having done a series which was intended to be large only - I found the work to be a little unfulfilling.
Like most people I want some immediate gratification. It is unusual in itself to require a painting to be printed before being complete. But since those are the rules of the digital medium - it is definitely nicer to be able to print it directly after completing it and not have it look too small for the paper it is printed on.
The above piece - although improved at a larger size - works well at 13×19″ too. If you are interested in an original art print of this piece or any others on the blogsite, please send inquiries to specialorders@outhousestudios.net.
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April 22nd, 2006 by admin
Link to shopping cart yields miniature icon
Original Size ArtCart - Digital Art
When I first built my website, the shopping cart stayed open as a separate window - so it didn’t seem necessary to have a link to it in any fashion. When someone bought - there it was.
Recently, I was on a site and noticed a little icon for a shopping cart - nothing special, but for some reason it made an impression. And when I checked how my shopping cart works now, I realized I needed to have a link. Gone are the days of a separate window.
So I had a little fun creating this miniature cart and throwing some art inside. I actually took some miniature sections of some of my work and put it in the cart.
But at the size on the website… 
no one would ever know. But that is why I am including the original size here. Plus I think the size of the original work is interesting.
I have found that something too big - won’t look good small and something too small won’t look good big. Though there is incredible flexibility within the digital art medium, it is not without its limits.
And that is probably good.
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March 21st, 2006 by admin
Digital Medium: Texture, Collage, Technique Develop
Tractor Sunset - Gallery Page -Digital Painting Fall 2003
Sunset Seen - Gallery Page - Digital Painting Fall 2005
I was noticing the top painting the other day and focusing on the texture in the fields. It reminds me of torn paper or a collage with tissue. I think this is most obvious looking at the largest view.
I like the naive quality to this piece. The way the streaming sunlight is represented, the simple figure on the tractor and the colorful, collage-like sky.
The bottom piece, Sunset Seen, was painted looking from almost the same spot a slightly different direction - two years later. I am putting these together like this because it demonstrates how much technique I have been able to develop in the last couple of years.
Much of what keeps this exciting to me is that there is so much room for growth with the medium. Actually, it is so open ended as far as possiblity that I find myself making additional rules to have the sufficient limits for this medium to work.
In any event, I am not sure that the bottom piece is a better painting, but I do think - looking at the sky, the mountains, the irrigation and numerous other details; it is obvious how much more sophisticated my use of the medium has become. It also is better viewed
large.
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Sadly - hard work doesn’t always make something good.
