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evolving landscape

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

All Play

Play Print 1 with Dog - digital art painting - Dan Beck 2008

This is a very recent piece of digital art - playing around with a new template - hoping to introduce a new option for sharing art - more interested in the template size and corresponding original prints than the actual painting.

As a result, I have approached this work as the title suggests - from the point of play. Despite the play - and the landscape painted with abandon - it wreaked of a particular area I had been taking my dog, Bogart, to get some exercise.

Though he probably should have been scampering around the hillside - I ended up putting him in the corner pushing my brand or symbol around - kind of indicative of our relationship I guess - teaching him that I am in charge yet him pushing and resisting most of the way.

some sort of weird karma - reminds me of myself when I was adolescent… and sometimes still am

See Also

• Digital Art - ambiguities, distinctions, and open ended meaning of digital art
• Sharing Art - search result finds blog - nice image - traced from a photo - not at all like my work - but creativity needs to be encouraged
• Tour of Youth Arts Collective - art fosters problem solving and thinking outside the box - I have seen the yaksters work and I it points more towards the kind of world we need …

the climate of change

Two Pick 2 - digital painting / art prints - Dan Beck 2006

Yesterday was California Arts Day and also being the First Friday of every month an arts celebration here in what is a small community of Salinas.

There is nothing new about this - the two of coincided now for the third time; but this time the local newspaper - which like most - is more concerned with publishing the bad - published the good - right on. They also included an image of the above piece of digital art - which of course was a nice surprise for me.

For what it is worth - colors in print look a lot better than their website version. I have not written much about my current show in Salinas - but it has been really well received. More important to me is being a part of a changing landscape.

I believe we are in the process of becoming someplace special - our climate, landscape, and culture are coming together here - people are believing - just as I believe: in being at the right place at the right time by being where one is - and therefore supposed to be.

See Also

• Celebrate Art Today - positive article in yesterday’s Salinas Californian
• Digital Watercolor Overlap - previous article about the above digital painting and a little bit about why I embrace the medium

drive by landscape - fields, sky, and texture

Valley Colors - digital painting - Dan Beck 2007

There is a spot which this is loosely based on - I drive by it fairly regularly and it has a good view of the valley extending to the Santa Lucia Mountains and Mount Toro.

Like a lot of my work, it is more of a drive by impression - I saw color, and a few barns or houses, a few trees - but mostly the colors of sky and fields.

This is not a piece which knocked me over when I was finished - I wasn’t really sure about it - but there are many things I like: the short field growth in the front, the way the cloud twists like a ribbon, and the beautiful texture in the green field.

My eyes and mind move around the landscape well - so I guess I did ok.

Like all but a couple of my pieces - I started with a blank page and painted and created the digital painting by the strokes of a mouse.

See Also

• Big Valley 1 - another digital painting taken from an impression of pretty much the same spot

• UC Vegetable Research & Information Center - several good images of Salinas Valley plus some information about agriculture

• From the ground up - an image of the Salinas Valley brought me to this site - good article about small organic growing in the area and the group ALBA

hugging the inhospitable mountains

More Warm Hills - digital painting / art prints - Dan Beck 2005

Perhaps a bit more symmetrical than I might have done in hindsight (today’s topic), but a digital painting I still really like.

I am always fascinated by landscape which I know is not hospitable, but from a distance looks incredibly inviting. In a case like the warm hills above, those hills despite being a dry mess of weeds and grasses look like you would want to go roll on them or give them a hug.

That was the quality I was looking for -

With luck having said that you might see it that way as well if you didn’t already. 

Needless to say, an actual art print brings it home more. 

See Also

• More Warm Hills
  Availability of art prints for digital painting More Warm Hills
• Bear Mountain
  Even granite from a distance can look hospitible - click on image
• Leh’s Mountain
  Another cold mountain - but from distance somewhat warm

Color in art prints create pleasing finished product

Treework - digital painting - circa - 1998 - Dan Beck

When I first starting creating digital paintings, I didn’t know very much about the program I was using.

I didn’t know I could adjust the dimensions to create a landscape or adjust the dimensions to have more or less pixels.

I didn’t even know how to adjust the colors in much of my palette. Less can sometimes be more - limits can be valuable for being creative.

In fact, I find it remarkable at how good these originally formatted pieces look enlarged to fit the 13×19" size watercolor paper which is used at Outhouse Studios. 

This particular piece has some really remarkable color in it. The creativity in manipulating a stock palette still pleases me and despite limited offerings of art print sizes - this piece still works.

The colors are even better in person and for sure the "tree work"s.

See Also

• Treework
  availability of art prints - framed and not
• Death of the Web-safe color palette?
  Though not discussing web design - interesting how viewing images and color on the web has changed and might still even be changing
• Painter’s Picker by Old Jewel Software
  I don’t use this - and probably never would - but it looks like a nice tool for someone with little color knowledge

Digital Painting Works at Different Sizes

Digital Painting - Valley Work  Dan Beck - 2005 

Like many pieces, when I first finished this I wasn’t quite sure if I pulled it off - even though I was pleased with it.  After two artist friends both said they liked the work, I realized it had captured what I wanted and the liberties with color and portrayal did not take away from the end results; but in fact, made the finished piece that much more interesting.

This piece was designed to be printed large - and from what I can tell would look its best at the largest 32×40" size - measure it sometime - it is a big piece. In order to grasp all that is contained - please look at the enlargement and the details which follow.

For this medium, one of the things that indicates success to me is whether a work looks good at all sizes. Valley Work has a nice balance of both color and form and is pleasing even small - but the figures, though visible in the smallest size print remain pretty obscure.

They were intended to be swallowed up by the landscape - but not go unnoticed.

See Also

• Valley Work
  Art print purchasing options
• Online NewsHour: Portrait Of The Artist December 23, 1998
  Interviews about Van Gogh’s color and life