Digital Art and the Creative Process
When I start to work I have no real sense of direction and I have great difficulty in visualizing an end product.
Perhaps that's because the goal is to create digital art, whatever that means.
Let me review why I was driven to a more expanded concept of digital art generation. One basic idea is to somehow make the creative process more dynamic and alive. After looking at myself I finally decided to do a Virtual Me.
Unfortunately, computers like to work with logic and sequential processes.
But I don't like to think in linear terms. I have a brain that likes to take
leaps into cosmic space and even looks into an underground. Let me see if I can step back and describe how I work
with the computer much of the time. Now what's going on when I try to create a work of digital art? Most of the time I will
start with an old AL script or code that has already set up in it, basic functions, calls for objects, my special wall,
camera and lights. Usually it's a copy of one, which produced a good image. I am too lazy to type out all of the commands
lines to describe the functions, calls for digital art objects and the rest. My mind is thinking images--shapes, forms, colors, light,
space, flowers, fog, love etc. I really don't like to program a computer. I want to function more like an artist.
Maybe I can move further in this direction.
The Magical Digital Art Object
As I said, I begin by making substitutions within the old script. I may have a vague notion of some quality but it is usually very unclear.
There may be a connection to what I had for breakfast. I will grab an object and begin to play turning and twisting it in space or applying
various transformations to it. I often spend a great deal of time looking through directories for that magical digital art object. That object with an
aura that will shock and somehow reveal a basic truth about something. I occasionally get an object from other sources or create one.
I'm constantly making parameter changes that affect size, position, rotation, lights, camera position, surface properties, etc. Then I doodle with parameter space continuing to transform until I beat it to death. I make frequent substitutions for the choice of the object, a dancing figure pose, fragmented objects, a horse, an eyeball or a nose. I can spend days making changes as I search for this illusive magic. Literally hundreds of changes will take place until something clicks. The click is an esthetic quality, something that looks different to me.
It feels right. Until the click arrives the stuff looks stupid, ordinary, repetitive and simply dumb.
I Hate Computers
I often wonder if I work this way because I basically hate computers and the sequential process. I don't like the constraints. My mind can't play, jump all over the place and operate like a truly free spirit. I want to be a crazy Picasso or an outrageous Pollack. Sequential processes are bad, bad, and really bad. There is nothing tactile or kinesthetic to keep me in touch. But there is all that stupid typing!! The delays before you see anything test one's patience. Besides, my brain doesn't go in a straight line. Something idiosyncratic is going on. My mind jumps all over the place searching for that interesting something. On rare occasions this may take place within a matter of seconds. It's incredible how rapidly there can be a shift in perception. Until I can find that something, the world is mechanical, confining and boring. In my secret heart, it's true, I really don't like working with computers. They remind me of Professor Ralph Fanning who made us learn all of the details of art history. We never learned anything about art.
[ go to part 2 ]
