The Modern Art Idiocy

reply to post by ArMaP


that's what i was after, to make it as realistic as i could. the closer to the original photo it was, the happier i was. he is different though. he's not identical in appearance to the original, which i also liked because it made it seem like it was a frame after the original frame, in the film, so you know who it is but are seeing him in a way you haven't seen him before. (and i like all kinds of art: photo realistic, surrealism, modern art (to an extent), art nouveau, vector art, manga/anime, and etc.) i also did a messy painting of captain jack sparrow and a more precise work of king elessar (aragon from lord of the rings).

anyway, i don't paint anymore, armap, so i don't think your concern over which style i should stick to, is relevant, although it's appreciated that you took the time to critique it.

reply to post by masqua


that's cute!
can you link me to the whole painting?

reply to post by undo


Tried linking to the painting in a U2U, but that didn't work.

Here's the whole thing:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ccbd174c4041.jpg[/atsimg]

edit to add:

Of course, the bear (etc) gets cut off, but you can view it in my ATSMedia file under paintings.



[edit on 31/7/10 by masqua]

reply to post by masqua


really nice colors and textures! who is the bear in it? who does he/she represent?

reply to post by masqua


just right click it and choose "view image" from the drop down menu. that's what i did. saw the whole thing

[edit on 31-7-2010 by undo]

reply to post by undo


Pure artistic license. Rather like signing my name, really. The piece is an exercise in pareidolia and is a representation of the wide plain of Cydonia on Mars. Here's the real image:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/fc4645039970.jpg[/atsimg]

Originally posted by undo
that's what i was after, to make it as realistic as i could.

When I said that it looks like it went through some Photoshop filters that meant that I doesn't look realistic, it looks (for a lack of a better expression, but I hope you understand) arithmetically artificial.

anyway, i don't paint anymore, armap, so i don't think your concern over which style i should stick to, is relevant, although it's appreciated that you took the time to critique it.

I was not saying or implying that you should stick to any specific style, I was just commenting.

Please do not read in my posts more than what I really write.

reply to post by masqua


Just use the img tags, they add the scroll bar if necessary.

reply to post by ArMaP


my painting of c3po.
fc07.deviantart.net...

the original photo of c3po, that inspired the painting
www.aptirrelevance.com...

compare them. i was trying to do what the artists do who paint the pictures for the covers of the dvds and posters. similar picture, using the same pallet but just different enough that it's its own art work. it was my photo realistic style, which was frequently confused with "cheating." wasn't cheating, but i can see why you think so.

[edit on 31-7-2010 by undo]

Originally posted by undo
wasn't cheating, but i can see why you think so.

Who said anything about cheating?

And I like more this C3PO painting than the previous portrait, although more poster like it looks less artificial than the other, but that's just my subjective opinion.

reply to post by ArMaP


arthimetically artificial and a picture that has just passed thru photoshop filters is, in the world of graphical art, saying the art looks like cheating. just wanted to demonstrate that was not the case. i used graphical tools like paintbrush, smudge brush, air brush, to put graphical paint on a blank graphical canvas and move it around, meld the colors together, so that it resembled the original.

some people use a technique with layers, called tracing. i didn't trace my art, either, as my c3po art proves. it's also obvious i didn't clone it from the original. i just looked at the original pics, visually gauged where the paint should go on the canvas just like in traditional art, took the pallete of colors from the photo, and painted the pictures. (you can create your own pallete of colors in graphical programs, just like in traditional art, but in graphical programs you can use the actual colors in the photograph for your pallete rather than colors that simply resemble the original colors).


[edit on 1-8-2010 by undo]

Originally posted by undo
arthimetically artificial and a picture that has just passed thru photoshop filters is, in the world of graphical art, saying the art looks like cheating.

Well, I guess that shows that I'm not part of that world of graphical art.

reply to post by ArMaP


yeah, and my visual problems are pretty much evident in the fact i often don't see little smudge spots and other evidences that i've melded colors at some point and not finished it.

in traditional art, when you meld colors you typically thin them, mix them on the pallete and apply to canvas, drag the colors into each other, or add water (depending on type of paint).

in graphical painting you have a couple options to do the same thing, one of which is the smudge brush, that acts somewhat like adding water to acrylic paint or water color. the other is a thing called the selection tool, which allows you to section off an area and apply a blending function, like gaussian blur, typically achieving the same thing. but if ya gaussian blur an area and don't go back over it with any detail, you can end up with a blob of blurry color, which to some people's eyes, looks like you've just taken a photograph and smudged it.

this is further accentuated if your original canvas size is the actual size the painting is being displayed as. most graphical artists start off with huge blank graphical canvases in 300+ psi, so when they finally shrink it down to the size they want people to view it in, any such smudges and blending functions are not visible. in the case of my paintings, the pic ya see, is exactly the size i originally painted in.

Originally posted by undo
yeah, and my visual problems are pretty much evident in the fact i often don't see little smudge spots and other evidences that i've melded colors at some point and not finished it.

Did you thought that may be part of the reason why you don't like some of those paintings?

in traditional art, when you meld colors you typically thin them, mix them on the pallete and apply to canvas, drag the colors into each other, or add water (depending on type of paint).

I know this is going off-topic, but as I see it as an opportunity to learn something more (and an opportunity that may be used by other people) I will ask it anyway.

Don't you think that in cases like this, the digital techniques are not as flexible or "tunable" (I don't remember any other word) as the original, analogue version?

Like in the mixing of the colours; although not an artist I have used paint some times, so I know that it's easy to change a colour by painting over it with a very thinned colour, and applying more or less layers of paint as needed, with even the possibility of using different tools to change the way the paint is laid over the support, making it look rougher or smoother.

Originally posted by ArMaP
Don't you think that in cases like this, the digital techniques are not as flexible or "tunable" (I don't remember any other word) as the original, analogue version?

Agree wholeheartedly. You can blend colours better with spray paint, even. Just look at some of the terrific graffiti that's 'out there' these days. I see that as a huge aspect of fine art and you couldn't get more 'modern' or contemporary than that.

Watercolour painting has got to be the best example of blending different hues. It is also (imho) the most difficult to master... wet paper and all.

To do the same digitally might be possible, but wouldn't it take a seriously dedicated expert in CGI to pull off something similar to a successful watercolour painter?

sp

[edit on 1/8/10 by masqua]

reply to post by ArMaP


it's an exchange. like in traditional paint, if you have put the pupil in the eye of your subject in the wrong place, you have to paint it all over again in the right place. in graphic programs, if the pupil is out of place, you can just select it with the selection tool, copy it, and move it to the spot you want to put it and paste it in new spot. also, some programs have more advanced features than my old paintshop program and graphical tablets add even more flexibility. problem i had with tablets is the buttons were often so small, i couldn't see the text on them so i ended up painting with the mouse (this is not easy, btw, especially before the advent of the laser mouse).

oh and i should mention that you have several choices of brushes to work with, which can be adjusted to have various levels of opacity, coarseness, size, amount of bristles and so on.


[edit on 1-8-2010 by undo]

the little drop down box in the box on the left, called shape, is set for a round brush. it also has square, left slash, right slash, horizontal and vertical. in more advanced programs, the brush selections are much more extensive. you have water color brushes, brushes that paint swaths of patterns or images (think flight of butterflies, spray of stars, swirling leaves or climbing ivy), brushes that look like ink, and so on.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/850a469a58547c0c.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by undo


Thanks for that, but it wasn't needed, I have Paint Shop Pro.

I just think that physically painting gives more freedom than the computer version, and one of the reasons (and I forgot to tell that on my post) is the lack of colours available on a computer.

An average person sees more colours than the available on a computer screen, even a perfectly calibrated one .

reply to post by ArMaP


probably true. i started off putting my art in online galleries by painting them on graphics programs, primarily because 1) i didn't have any way to put traditional art on the computer at the time (the options were limited and too expensive for me) 2) it was fun to tinker and experiment with the graphics programs, 3) it was easier to correct my mistakes, which were many, and 4) i had been recovering from coma for several years, and had to relearn fine motor skills, as a result i didn't do any traditional or graphical art for a very long time.

most of my traditional art, which i had created before the coma, was thrown away by my mother-in-law while i was in the coma. she thought i was a goner, and found my pre-coma artwork to be disturbing. i didn't bother doing any more traditional art, after that. next time i attempted art was when i learned how to use graphic art programs.

[edit on 1-8-2010 by undo]

So if I painted a canvas solid red or green or black and red striped and sold them, would I be sued for copyright infringement?

I may have created a masterpiece last week when I ran my brush over an old board to clean off the excess paint before washing it.