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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

painting the feeling of perception

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

seeing for the first time

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

communicating the art itself

Field Hand - digital painting - art prints - Dan Beck 2006

Over the weekend - someone asked about Marc Chagall and I thought of this piece, but could not remember what it really looked like.

It is always interesting how memory and current perception vary. I think I like this more than I did originally. The pun is fun - but the way it is painted including the rather primitive face works today. I feel like the field might blow away - there is this dreamlike quality and world of its own which is the essence of art in many ways.

I love doing abstract work - love not having to follow any sort of guidelines but the piece itself. But I also like to engage people in a subject or a vision which I feel is worth sharing.

The field worker looking at the dirt is both what we imagine and what really happens - in my case, I got to see it - and felt like it was worth sharing - but in this way unique to me - not so deep really.

See Also

• Chagall - hadn’t seen the spelling “Shagal”, but there is something which reminds me of the pictured work which I see in the above - synopsis is also pretty good.
• Digital Art - multiple meanings - and art’s larger significance
• Field Hand - current options for original prints of above digital painting

understanding lives even in abstract

Enlarge - Cloud Cover - Digital Painting 2006- Dan Beck

This seemed like a natural piece to feature directly after the below black and white digital painting. It was undoubtedly created around the same dark and dreary time - which coincidentally or not is a lot like today.

There are certain things, I love about this piece. I love the billowed nature of the clouds. I love the ridges in the mountains - I love the way there is depth even in the midst of nonsensical clues. The line of trees seems to hover in air, yet the hills still look solid.

The digital painting works without confusion even though it probably should be confusing - but our eye reads a lot like we read language - able to switch around words and letters and still get the correct meaning.

This aspect of perception is quite compelling - for it is here that we find the freedom to say things in new ways and still be understood.

See Also

• Cloud Cover - purchasing info and art print options for above digital painting
  
• Perception - nicely laid out explanation of some of nuances of perception including: Perceptual Systems, Historical Background, Innate And Learned - Classical perceptual phenomena, Broad theoretical approaches, Current research/future developments

observing the lowest point and the artist’s role

Wheel of Fields - digital painting for art prints - 2006

This is a real view from a position just at the  bend in the road.  I found it amazing that the fields from this angle really look like spokes of a wheel.  It is equally amazing that the pattern of the hills finds the lowest point to be the circle - where just as amazing the ever present strawberry harvesters were at it again and only in that area.

A mouthful indeed, but it is clearly the reason why I felt the need to bring the painting to life.

Inspiration surrounds me. I feel lucky that so many things make me want to create. But I am also lucky that I can’t help but look around me.

I have said in other places - that observing is much of the artist’s role - and listening the musician’s.

I don’t see myself as trying to record as a photograph would, but rather as someone more inside the experience - with feelings and confused perception in tact.

For art prints from this digital painting, please email: specialorders@outhousestudios.net.

See Also

• 4 The Road
  An earlier view of the bend - before strawberries
• Around the Arts: Audience members are artists in observation
  Observation is key to being artist and enjoying art
• Click on the image for a larger view of the photo
  Part of University of Florida website and strawberry research - interesting old photos I stumbled upon

Uniqueness of Perception Creates Wonderful Worlds

Gallery Page of Mountain Headress - Digital Painting

On this particular day, the clouds and mountain looked like one organism. With the clouds as a head covering, I found it impossible to tell where one began and where the other ended.

Needless to say, this was only a small section of my view. But it was the section of the view which I was drawn to. An artist limits his vision to the story he chooses to tell. Actually we all probably do this.

The world is vast, perception is huge - but there is something unique about the position of any observer. What separates the telling is also the conceptual bias. This is what I saw, but

• it is more importantly how I saw it.
• and finally it is how I chose to tell it.

Whether a piece speaks to you like it needs to be on your wall or just simply is - there is a story. It is about unique perception, understanding, and physical limits and range of artist and medium.

The thing about appreciating art, is that it is still wonderful whether one likes it or not.

See Also

• How We See: The First Steps of Human Vision
  Introduction to how we see
• Individual differences in taste perception directly related to genetic variation in taste receptors
  Physically different taste receptors - interesting implications for other taste?
• Seeing is Understanding
  Included partly because I like the title - but offers insight into how we learn - always related

About seeing, illusions, and reality

See enlargement of A State of Sky - Digital Painting 2006

This is one of the last paintings I created; it is about color and space, but it was prompted by this most unusual sky. The clouds were perfectly placed within the silouhette of the mountains.

But what I painted is more what I saw - it was as though the clouds had a blue outline around them. Because I had never seen this quite this way, I decided to paint the illusion rather than the reality.

Of course, as a student of perception for years, I tend to think the illusion is the reality. And it is our sense of how the world is put together which actually confuses our ability to see.

Even those of us who know better don’t really see with just our eyes; our minds and understanding are what partition the world.

See Also

• Very Cool Illusion
  Link found in text - excellent example of reality vs illusion
• Knowing People: Understanding Perceptions
  There text explaining how we perceive reinforces my point
• Onion theory of reality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Not completely related, but came up in my search - interesting and pertinent enough

Relative Color, Race, Complementary Color, Possibility

Color is probably my favorite thing in art and in seeing.  It has incredible wisdom in it. Color only has color because of what it is next to. It is completely relative and changing with the colors that are found next to it. It demands to be communal by its very being.

One of the exercises we did in college was to make two small pieces of the same color look completely different, and two completely different colors look the same. We used Color Aid paper and surrounded the small pieces with colors that would achieve what we set out to do.  The results were quite dramatic. 

I attended an inner-city high school which was 85% black.  What was fascinating was how accustomed I became to that  mix. I found myself at an away basketball game in a predominately white high school and noticed that I felt peculiarly uneasy. I believe that color in this sense is also relative. The scientific leaning is that there is only one race.  Many even say that we are all of color.

Another really great thing about color is the terminology.  Complementary colors are opposites - they make each other look vibrant, almost clashing - red/green, yellow/purple, blue/orange etc. and when they are mixed they produce brown or gray - which like skin color is the same thing depending on proportion.

Like all human perception and understanding, color is limited.  I find myself frequently searching for a color which doesn’t exist. Yet as I say that, I am equally aware that there seems to be infinite possibility within that limited spectrum.  It is changing and vast despite its limits; and color doesn’t just accent life, it reflects it.

See Also

• The Arizona Rebublic - Reflecting on the color of a mirror
  Tongue in cheek analysis of reflective quality of mirror
• The QandO Blog - What, white isn’t a color?
  An article about reverse discrimation and color
• Color Matters
  Site has commentary on large variety of aspects of color
• Racism v Colorism - A Wrong Headed Debate
  Discussion of semantics vs reality - and truth of one human race
• Nova Online: Does Race Exist?
  Thoughtful discussion by George Gill

Aesthetic Appreciatation, Perception, Limits, and Creativity

Limits come in many forms. Our bodies themselves supply the limits of our perception. We can only hear within a certain range and see within a certain range. Each individual also comes with his specific limitations whether based on environment, genetics, or as I have previously suggested one’s past experience and interpretations.

In an article and interview originally posted in The Edge and then reposted in Future Positive , author and MIT research psychologist, Steven Pinker talks about this from a different perspective, "Many artists and scholars have pointed out that ultimately art depends on human nature. The aesthetic and emotional reactions that we have to works of art depend on how our brain is put together. Art works because it appeals to certain faculties of the mind."

My propostion is not just that the appeal of art is dependent upon such limits, but also the creation of art. In obvious ways, gravity provides limits for a sculptor, and time and technical skills can provide additional limits. But limitations are a welcome thing - a less than full palette of color can be quite useful in creating something pleasing. Using the pentatonic scale, such as the black keys on the piano, can provide limits and safety from dissonance.

Though I don’t suggest always going so far as to be safe, I do suggest relishing the limits you personally have as being a tool for providing a space to play within and one which can be uniquely your own.

See Also

• Original Interview with Steven Pinker
  Perception and physiological limits