Art

For some reason in a discussion I noticed in myself a frustration when hearing mention of Art (in this sense I'm purely talking about art displayed in galleries). Whilst I've certainly never found myself enamored with the medium I didn't notice such strong, stark, negative feelings in me before.

I suppose this post will most likely constitute a bit of a rant, but there are certain elements of my vastly unfair and irrational criticism that might have some legitimacy. Let me be clear, my problems with the medium lie less in its value as creative expression, but rather with the 'art world'.

It's perhaps best to start with the oddity that put me down this road of thought in the first place. In art I feel there is a great need (seemingly greater than any other medium) for uniqueness. Galleries pay millions to hang paintings, to show sculptures and to display installations created by the original artist. Whilst it may be worth paying for a first edition or original manuscript of a famous book, the intention is certainly that these works were meant to be distributed - the wider the better. Copying a novel, poem or film doesn't depreciate the value of the art itself, only the physical vehicle by which it is delivered.

Somehow this principle is reversed in the art world. The physical 'vehicle' is seemingly more important than any other identical copy. Even an indistinguishably similar forgery is worth infinitely less than the original, regardless of the emotion it evokes in the onlooker.

Conversely an undetected forgery is somehow worth exactly the same as the original. Only when its authenticity is assessed - using increasingly complicated techniques - does the value ever come into question.

There seems to be a necessary amount of self-denial required to make this system work - a false importance needed to be injected by the viewer, rather than a universal importance.

This question of the importance of authenticity and historicity is addressed - and in my opinion, adequately answered - in the Philip K Dick novel, The Man in the High Castle. The creation of art has greater value than the objects which physically embody this value and the connection we place in the object is subjective: seeing Lincoln's top hat might be significant because Lincoln wore it, but the hat itself has no value - after all, it is just a hat. It did not free the slaves nor perform the Gettysberg address nor die in a theatre. However, it does serve the purpose of an emotional conduit, through which we can feel a connection to its famous owner. We search, perhaps naively, for a connection to the long-gone subject through the object.

For all my ranting, I don't have any problem with this. Ultimately the connection we feel is genuine and important. For instance, I would never take away the mementos of a long dead friend for the purile reason of it not being 'real'.

However, what I do take issue with is the monetary valuing of this commodity; this emotional connection. A process that ultimately strikes me as incredibly undemocratic.

To make a(~nother) preposterous analogy, if Bill Gates, or any other infinitely rich person, were to buy the only copy of a literary work to form part of their private collection, there would be uproar. Ok, maybe not if it were Russell Brands Bookey Wook, but for virtually any text with remote artistic value, this would be shocking.

It is my belief that techonolgy will provide the ultimate liberation of Art from the shackles of oligarchical economic control. After all, it is the invention of the printing press that allow William Tyndale to take advantage and disseminate great works to the public. This act was of course illegal and Tyndale's punishment was infamously dire. We owe much as a society to the sacrifice he and others made.

I also read (rather fondly) that it was acts of literary piracy that allowed the spread of the works of Robert Louis Stevenson abroad to Australian and American readers, where he received his greatest fame and praise.

I am also at this point inclined to once again mention The Man in the High Castle, in which the fictional novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is spread both illegally and widely.

To draw more modern parallels, it is the internet that has allowed widespread distribution of digital media. So perhaps, one day, we will wonder around virtual art galleries, where every man woman and child can hold a great work of art in their hands; barriers of distance or cost long dissolved. Perhaps we will wonder what it must've been like to live in a world so restricted.

Rant OVER and out.

African Oliphaunt

I've never been great with presents. If it's someone I know well, I'm ok, but even then I never know how far to go. I like to make the recipient happy, but not uncomfortable. Alright, maybe I just think too much about this stuff and over-analyse. But anyway, this time I thought I might do something a little special.

Having spent quite a lot of time over the past few months basically learning how to draw and create art, I now have a creative tool that I can put to good use. My sister's birthday was coming up and I thought it might be nice to paint (can I still call it that if I'm using a computer?) something and use it as a birthday card.

She likes elephants. They're her favourite animal. I can kind of draw animals so I thought that's a good start.

Here's the first sketch.

I then added the outline and coloured the eyes.

I started with shadowing and then realised I had gone way too dark, too early. I did some colour editing on that layer to enhance the midtones, so in later images those shadows aren't so obvious. I also added that grey wash.

Used a fairly low opacity brush for the shadows and played around with the layer opacity to get it the right colour. I also added a foreground layer for the grass. The grass brush on CS4 is awesome. I've tried creating custom brushes and it's hard to get the settings just right. It's nice to have something so useful that just works right off the bat.

I used a really large brush to do the blue sky and used the grass brush again to create more...grass. I also had to add a white underlay to the elephant because the blue background kept showing through. I did this manually but I'm sure there must be an easier way. If anyone reading has any photoshop experience and knows a better way, I'd appreciate the info.

[click the image for full res]

I was also going to include this message as the inlay, but I didn't get around to it. I'm a bit of a sucker for that messy-but-somehow-neat script.

Sarah, if you're reading, Happy Birthday. Hope you liked the card.

Do How Photoshop I?

I had some more free time recently so I thought I would try practice shooping because I suck at photoshop. I think I'm ok at drawing using a tablet so I've managed to create decent images, but then I've ruined them every time I tried to add colour. Digital painting, it seems, requires skills I do not possess.

Trying not to let this crush me too much, I went back to basics and just watched scores of youtube tutorials. After an embarassingly long period of time, I managed to create my first passable painting.


Yup that's right, folks - a ball. Couldn't really get much simpler than that. However, it did teach me a lot about how the program actually works and the importance of layering. I also learnt the importance of keyboard short-cuts. These drastically speed up your work.

I learnt a lot, but it's frustrating not being able to create what you envisage. On this next painting I tried to be far more ambitious with the complexity and range of techniques I used.

First, a basic sketch. I decided on Samurai Jack. He's a simple, bold character and the artwork in that program was just so stunning. He felt like an appropriate choice.

Next using paths I created an outline. I've never used this tool before so it was a little hard to get used to, but it's just perfect for creating smooth lines.

Used the gradient tool here to create these...gradients. A very simple effect but adds depth and some shadowing to the image.

Finally I created a background using brushwork and colour overlays. This was probably the most complex part of the image. Many layers of varying opacities and effects are used to make the fiery red tones. [click on the image to view full res]


Pretty happy with the end result anyway. It's nothing incredible but it looks decent and, more importantly, I've learnt a lot on the way.

Final point. If you haven't watched Samurai Jack, just do. Incredible animation and style. It's one of the best (if not the best) Western animations about.

Self Portrait

I've been getting quite into Paint Pad. I didn't realise how much I missed drawing. I really wanted to create more like the Beast. These are far more complicated and take a lot more time. I had a real disaster today copying this Iron Man photo. I had spent three hours on it when my phone decided to restart itself. Seriously, I was pissed. Like, FML, emo, wrist-slitting pissed. The save function is pretty annoying on this app so I hadn't been doing it as I went along. It was my favourite piece yet and I was so close to finishing when it crapped out on me. Let that be a lesson to you kids at home: "Always save your work".

Anyway, in the twisted logic that comes from that kind of frustration, I decided that I didn't want to let technology beat me. I needed to finish drawing something. Eventually I settled on doing a self-portait. This is my first ever attempt and admittedly I think it shows. Anyway, judge for yourselves.


Sauce image


My version

Seeing as I saved regularly this time, I was able to build up a slideshow of my progress, which you can view here. It's annoying when you're working, but this is a pretty cool bonus.

Paint Pad for Nokia 5800

Whilst working in an office over the summer, I discovered the beauty of MS Paint as a way to pass away those long, dull hours doing administrative work. It's a lot more suspect than Solitaire and can be really embarrassing if your boss discovers you drawing pictures of pandas. Nonetheless, it's a brilliant way to just waste some time.

I discovered yesterday that there's a Paint application available for my Nokia 5800. I've been playing around with it, pretty much non-stop since then. It's quite difficult to do good, full-size images because the screen is only 3.2" but using a stylus is a million times better than a mouse.

I've been reading Astonishing X-Men recently and so they were the first things I thought to draw. Here are some quick sketches what I done.

Here's Wolverine.

This is a really shitty Colossus. I spent about 15 minutes just trying to draw his head and it still looks terrible. His positioning is really boring too, but I was drawing him from memory so I didn't want to do anything too difficult.

I did this initial sketch of Cyclops, but I wasn't too sure about the colouring. I've always liked the more traditional costume rather than the way he looked in the animated series.

Colouring is a bit fictional here. I don't think he has yellow goggles, but I thought it looked pretty cool. I added the right hand too, just to make it a really traditional Cyclops pose.


This is probably my favourite. I copied this from google images. I just love John Cassady's Beast. You can view the source image here.


And finally....a panda. Never let your boss catch you doing this.