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original digital art - pigment prints

Original Article Black & White Vision

Original Article Colorized Vision

I find I can’t help mocking the whole concept of original art. This is obviously the same digital painting - but one has color and one doesn’t. In this case, the color wasn’t removed but added - yet they are both original.

They are also both original creations by the artist - separate files and master images. Each print is also an original because that is how they were intended - to be printed. I wouldn’t dream of hanging a monitor and it doesn’t look as good as printed at the right size.

But here again is the rub - digital doesn’t necessarily have a right size and the prints don’t have a right term. Art prints sound too much like a reproduction - giclee does as well. Pigment print I saw recently at the de Young - and as much as I like that term - it doesn’t have the power of etching or lithograph.

New mediums use a different language to create and perhaps communicate, but also require a new language to be accepted.

See Also

• Image Guide 1 to Blogsite - not only can I find previous articles by a thumbnail digital image - but so can you - - not always completely up to date but still
• More About Giclee and Pigment Prints - to my point that such technology is mostly used for reproductions albeit excellent ones
• de Young Exhibition - Guise: Recent Prints by Deborah Oropallo - though there is explanation about how these wonderful fun images were created - just “pigment prints” were used to define the actual pieces in the show

originality, style, and first generation prints

Strawberry Alley - digital art print - Dan Beck 2007

It is kind of typical of me to be somewhat contrary. So to feature a simulated art print from a digital painting which I have already recently featured - makes total sense for a new category called “Original Art“.

I am really not that big on praising my own work. To say I like something I have done is one thing - but a claim of complete originality would be preposterous.

However, I believe my work to generally be my style - I also know I am not the only one who sees this. It is always intended to be mine and always intended to be original.

Because the work I am featuring at Outhouse Studios is created as a digital image - every print created is an original - probably not a one of a kind but the way it was intended and a first generation original print.

See Also

• Original Art - discussion of what it means
  
• Should the Legal Meaning of ‘Originality’ Be Altered? - someone else’s more detailed discussion - Rich Text Format (html/highlighted version linked above). Would we really care so much about proprietary rights if money weren’t a concern?

color, texture - bumps, bends and growth

Hillside Spin 2 - digital painting - Dan Beck 2007

Thought I would revisit this piece. When I wrote about it last week, all I discussed was the new technique and how much fun or too much fun I had.

But in truth, I think the digital painting is quite pleasing. It is not that representative of my work in general, but so what. I like the playfulness. I like the bumps and bends my eye takes looking at it.

The color I was able to impart is also fun to look out - there is tremendous texture and this was intended to be a double print - so to get a better sense of what it would look like printed - I captured a section at the right size.

Art is always about process and growth -

I used to always say “the more we live the more we die” - an odd paradox, but true. Today I think of youth and growth and that perhaps we are not dying as long as we are growing.

See Also

• Houses on the Hillside - for some reason, the above painting keeps making me think of this one - a drive by moment on the 101 near San Jose - art prints are set up for purchase for this piece
• Exhibit Helps the Creative Growth Process - not a current exhibit, but article shows how art affects both the artist and the viewer - helping us to see ourselves on many levels

exaggeration as explanation

Blue Clouds at Evening - digital painting - Dan Beck 2007

I haven’t made art prints available for this yet - of course, with a brand new piece, I can’t tell if anyone will groove on it like I do. Plus I have yet to get a good print - my first attempt had some unwanted printer lines in it.

I actually saw this! I’ve exaggerated some - to create the drama that was really in the evening - sharpening the sky’s color and making the clouds more dimensional and clear blue.

But that is what makes art - it is about conveying what one sees - what one understands - with the confines and enhancements of the medium one uses.

So having said that, I think it is a fun digital painting.

See Also

• Crazy Light - in lieu of art print options for above piece - another crazy sky

• Green Clouds and Thunder Storms - thought these were some interesting photos - it was an unusual sky last night

composition for a non-specific subject

Quick Study 2 - Dan Beck - digital painting for art prints - 2007

The process of creating is almost always interesting. By the time I got to this stage, this digital painting was no longer a quick study… but it did start out that way.

I have had enough of an absence from painting - that I did not want to retrieve a subject - this is no place in particular - something I do from time to time - but it definitely is here.

I am happy with the composition - the eye-flow - the richness of color and the feeling it evokes.

See Also

• Filming In Monterey County - Location Library - Location Photos, Listings
  photos of Monterey County from the Film Commission
• No Particular View
  art print options for a different but similar piece - have not yet created purchasing options for above piece

size obscures details, madras colors, and enveloping clouds

More Mountain & Clouds - Dan Beck - digital painting / art prints 2004

The clouds do come in and swallow the mountains. The mountains do not look so madras like. They do have color in them, but not quite so obvious.

The transparent nature of some of the clouds and the blue sky poking through, I know to be true as well.

I know this is representative of what is, but I am not sure it is as strong in the category of beautiful in its own right.

A similar scene was tackled earlier by me as a digital painting and has been tackled several times since - a more recent take. Like many of the pieces from this time, this was intended to be quite large and hard to envision even with the enlarged details.

See Also

• collage-recreation : nouveaux_collages_pr
  in searching for madras found these interesting collages - worth taking a look at
• Twin Peaks Low Clouds
  a fun time lapse watching the clouds roll in
• More Mountain & Clouds
  art print options for above digital painting

compulsory connection and continual challenge

All That Jazz - digital painting / art prints - 2006 - Dan Beck

I happened upon an article today - actually it happened upon me by having ages ago signed up for related stories at googlealert.com.

The story is about how it isn’t enough to be a good musician, one must make oneself heard - creating or developing venues as necessary.

Art is no different I think - it is not enough just to create wonderful art - it must be viewed. By its very nature, all art requires an audience; and even the artist as audience, though sometimes sufficient, views in the context of his own culture.

But having said all that it doesn’t make it easier for an artist to both have to pioneer with his art and with creating his own audience - they are sadly not always compatible.

See Also

• All That Jazz
  art print options for above digital painting
• Cecil Bridgewater: Where to Create Music
  musicians needing to create venue and audience - nothing has changed
• Relationship 2.0: Build Your Audience and Create Fans at Business Performance Coaching
  mostly about creating an internet audience but connected I think

accurate feeling without being literal - appreciating ambiguity

Big Valley 1 - Digital Painting / Art Prints - Dan Beck 2005

What I see today is the geometry of lines - the exaggerated rows of crops or dirt - creating a backdrop both unmistakable and unreal.

I like the way the foreground pokes out of the next layer - making one unclear as to whether everything is at the same height or up a level of hill.

I love the lines which look like a shirt and the tissue like nature of the mountains. It is far from literal - but I know this place…

This is the valley I see so regularly - but also a place of its own.

See Also

• Big Valley 1
  art print options and availability for above digital painting
• Harvesting in Salinas
  Aerial shot of valley and other photos of celery harvest
• Take a Hike with Unlimited Limited - Chimneys West
  Had the type photo I was looking for with layers of mountains - some other nice shots here

elements of a literal time

Winter Colors - digital painting /art prints - Dan Beck 2006

Despite the symmetry of the mountain peak in the center, I still enjoy the feeling of this piece.

The colors are true to winter here, but the curving strips over the land creating a mounded look are from who knows where.

I think I was working towards a more finished look but opted to quit before I got there. Sometimes one likes a stage enough to stop there - I am assuming that is what happened here.

The look is a bit uncharacteristic - though my style typically includes abstract elements.  A digital painting of mine that is this worked is usually more literal. But then again this was more of a composite - pulling the man holding the dirt out of some former memory.

See Also

• Winter Colors
  Art print options and availabilty for above digial painting
• Digital Printmaker and Painter Susan KAPROV
  In doing some related searches - this site came up - a quite different approach and some very cool work
• The Photography collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LACMA
  Because of the “abstract elements” in the first photograph - I stumbled upon this site - interesting images plus the Bermuda triangle image has almost identical colors to above piece

movement and color for a field in the hand

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

I am realizing that this is the last piece of last year for me. I wanted to take the concept of the man with dirt in his hand to another level.

Obviously, I could not resist the Field Hand pun. I worked on this piece quite a lot - sometimes a mistake as many will attest. But I don’t really care about that today. Suffice it to say that although the piece was fun - it did not come easily.

As a result, I am not sure if I hooked it or not - but I do know that there is a great deal of movement and a great deal of color …

and I think Marc Chagall would be pleased -certainly not the same but quite reminiscent.

See Also

• CGFA - Marc Chagall
  a number of images and biorgraphical information
• Field Hand
  Art print options and availability for above digital painting