Category: Art

06/10/2021

Alex Katz Flower Paintings

As promised, I am blogging about Alex Katz flower paintings, and attempting to copy his technique. Lately I have been obsessed with his style. He is so economical in what he shows you. He pares the lines and colors down to only what is necessary to make his case that these are some flowers. Why does it work so well? I’m not sure but I can say that copying his technique is not as easy as it looks.

For my attempt at copying his process, I started out with some early evening photos. As you can see, you can start with a rather mundane photo and then fool with it till you get more information out of it. Read more

05/27/2021

On Copying an Artist’s Process

I’ve been striving to publish more blog posts lately and as a result, I am starting to find a common thread in the way I like to work. One of my go-to techniques for getting started is copying an artist’s process. I take an artist and try to figure out how they made the thing. Recent examples include James Nares and Yugo Hortal. In my sketchbook, I am continually trying to copy the great textile artist, Anni Albers.

But then the useless part of my brain chimes in with the notion that this may be “derivative.” Artists are supposed to be original, right? Read more

05/13/2021

Vector Brushstroke Art

This week I’ve been working on some vector brushstroke art. I have been taking the digitized brushstroke collages and bringing them to another level by vectorizing the brushstrokes.

This:

Becomes this:

04/30/2021

Digitized Brushstroke Collages

Abstract art is so alluring, but also daunting. The greats make it look easy (Diebenkorn, Rothko, Mitchell), but the reality is that it is so much easier to make a lot of crap. Yet I keep getting drawn to making it. Not sure why.

Lately I’ve been making these digitized brushstroke collages. It started out about six years ago when I discovered James Nares. When I find art that I really like, the impulse is to replicate it. What is the process? How did they do it? It’s like solving a puzzle. Read more

03/05/2021

Generative Art: A look at process

Once again I’m revisiting the process I use for creating generative art. I recently came across this comprehensive blog post on generative art from Artnome, and it’s really inspired me to look back at how my process has evolved, and why I am drawn to this type of image making.

On to the process. I start off with a simple object. In this case I photographed some ribbons, and made them into PNGs with a transparent background. I use the procreate app for all of my processing and design.