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Irrigation Man is enveloped in water - almost unseen

Irrigation Man - digital painting / art prints - Dan Beck 2006

I have been obsessed with trying to get my website moved to a different web-host. So far it is a much bigger undertaking than I could have expected and nowhere near done… oh well.

This is the first painting I have done in well over a week. I had the idea of creating a piece that would be ideal printed in halves and pieced together - making one large diptych if you will.

The first one came out really nice, but it was not intended to be printed like that from the outset. This piece is designed to maximize two sheets of 13 x19″ watercolor paper and put them together for a total print size of 19 x 26″ - which is pretty sizable.

I wanted this figure enveloped in water - I have seen things similar to this - though not recently. Sometimes for what one wants to communicate, that may actually be better.

See Also

• Impressionist Art Gallery
  Other examples of irrigation in digital paintings
• Jennifer Casey figurative pastels
  These are figures enveloped in water - much more literally than I was thinking - but rather interesting - dark website - probably easier viewed at night
• Flickr: Diptychs - two is better than one!
  Photos are more in the sense I am thinking - than traditional diptych

new work brings up the power of the actual art prints

Pick Aside - digital painting / art prints - Dan Beck 2006

As I am typing, this digital painting is working its way out of the printer in the form of a full to an eighth of an inch of the edge, art print - printed on Japanese watercolor paper.

I can see just the first figure at this point, but I can tell the strawberry fields themselves are going to be quite scrumptious. Doubt one will actually smell the strawberries, but the layers of color and texture make this art print more interesting than even what one can see in the larger version.

Like every image on the net, nothing can do justice to being there.  Because this painting was created digitally, it might be more accurate - but I am beginning to think that digital art may not be - every time I look at one of the art prints I see so much more, whatever the piece.

For art prints of the above digital painting, please email:  specialorders@outhousestudios.net.

See Also

• Figures Art Gallery
  Most similar work on website - Try “Experimental Fields” for same size prints
• What is digital art?
  another artist’s take

Vantage point and figure in this digital painting

Checkerboard Valley - digital painting / art prints - 2005

When I first completed this digital painting, I was really pleased with how I had captured what I had seen.  There is a small section looking down the valley which is near my house.

From that vantage point, one can see four different layers of height until one’s eye finds the mountains on the other side of the valley.

The person carrying the irrigation pipe wasn’t in that particular scene, but it was someone I had seen earlier in the day and it seemed both fitting and helpful for creating a sense of space.

He and his pipe were created in one stroke of the mouse - not that it matters, but I think it is kind of fun to know.

See Also

• Checkerboard Valley
  availability of art prints for above digital painting
• About Chamacos
  found for its photos - but organization which is studying affects of pesticides on children in Salinas Valley
• Salinas Valley
  This photo and next two - for good views of Salinas Valley

Figure, Fields, Pipes, Digital Landscape All Fit Together

Field Fitting - digital painting / art prints - Dan Beck 2006

I started this digital painting yesterday morning and wrote an article fueled by working on the piece and my taking a couple of screen shots while working on it extremely zoomed in.

I am really happy with the results. I have seen one man struggling with two of the large irrigation pipes a number of times here and it has been on my mental list of works for a while.

The backdrop was intended to be reminiscent of the rolling fields of Salinas, but more colorful, abstract, and transparent as far as its being computer art.

I was kind of hoping for the work to be a counter part to a digital painting from last year - Field Play - which is a very strong , but also quite different from most of my other pieces.

See Also

• Field Play
  counter part to above digital painting - same template - art print options would be the same
• SLSA: Mortlock Pictorial Collection B 53439
  Now these are LARGE irrigation pipes

Art at a Glance, Interpretation and Limits

Hoe Dance - Digital Painting 2005

This digital painting is another piece from the NEW Figures Art Gallery.  The piece is based on a drive by glance at two field workers hoeing in unison - no one else close by - working one in front of the other - the motion a dance.

Whether I pulled off their synchronicity or not, I can’t very well say. But I did manage to get their proximity and aloneness in the field.

From an art perspective, the fields have this wonderful texture - creating a blanket which we don’t normally view fields as - but it is often how I see.

The figures also have something pretty unusual going on. Though not intended to be anatomically accurate - they nevertheless carry a power and resolve which I am pleased came through.

When I do figures, I generally create them in one stroke of the mouse and then fill in and embellish as necessary. This partly came about because of the medium itself - not allowing for more than one correction back - as though oil painting were less forgiving.  Though to some extent I can fix and patch and correct - there are limits to it - and as I keep saying limits are valuable.

There is complexity and naiveness in this art.  The medium, my physical skills, and vision all provide limits and this gives the work a lot of its unique character.

See Also

• Dream Anatomy: Visible and Visionary: Dreaming Art Anatomy
  Liked the title - interesting drawing cutting between scientific and artistic
• Anatomy - LInks
  Extensive links to various - anatomical art and life drawing etc.

Taking a New Path Can Lead to Something New

Shape of Something New - Digital Painting 2005

I haven’t shared a lot of my abstract art in the last year or so. I have done some, and actually have a series just entitled "My Series". I found something I really liked - this mix of color and textured background and shapes slightly suggesting other things.

However, my focus has been more on producing a series on the world around me - agriculture landscapes and Central Coast beauty - still using some of the abstract techniques, but more representational and probably more accessible.

The above piece is a departure perhaps somewhere new to go and perhaps not - I am undecided. I took the below piece which I had decided was finished and looked at the suggested figures and decided I would pull them out.

Enlarge - My Series 14 - start of what’s above - Digital Painting 2005

I outlined the figures I saw and copied and pasted them - creating something very reminiscent of Duchamp’s "Nude Descending a Staircase". But too many figures made the multiples even more confusing to the eye and I opted for a little black line work to enhance what I was trying to bring out.

Though this may or may not be a new direction for my art - there is nothing totally new - notice this work "Violin and Palette" by Georges Braque who along with Picasso is credited for inventing cubism.

There are plenty of departures, but we all perceive using human eyes and processing.

See Also

• Eyecon Art - Cubisim
  Excellent examples of cubist movement
• Braque
  Works and some of life of Georges Braque
• Marcel Duchamp - Biography and Links
  Includes selected works
• Philadephia Museum of Art
  Modern and Contemporary Art - Houses large selection of Duchamp’s work