I would like to update the BLOG with some of my most recent artistic adventures. What I present here are a few highlights of stuff I have already posted on other social media. These are experiments that consist in taking photographs and "recasting them" with colors and (the illusion of) textures that availible to me in my now-considerably-enhanced (but by no means "professional") Digital Art and Graphics Studio.
Response on my social media to these pictures has been... well... mixed... Heh... 😜 Some folks, no doubt, would recommend I "stick to writing" Well, I'm still writing, don't worry. In fact, what concerns me is that people (increasingly) seem to have stopped reading. It's not just that they don't read my longer and more "verbally articulate" (complicated? boring?) blog posts. People don't want to read anything that's too long to fit into a box, or that's not incorporated into a multimedia presentation. But that's a subject for another day.
Even if no one reads, I will always write: it's an important part of my thinking process. And as a mode of communication, writing will never "go out of style."
Meanwhile, I wonder if people are slowly (but increasingly) moving in the direction of "picture-reading" (which is a very ancient form of cognitive articulation with erudite past achievements and who-knows-what future potential). It's just as well that I enjoy making pictures (or trying, anyway...). We teachers - whether we like it or not - are going to have to learn to communicate using these forms in powerful and inspiring ways if we want to reach people. If nothing else, it will force us to be concise.😉
Digital media tools also have hidden artistic possibilities of their own, beyond "imitating" type fonts and paint styles. Perhaps we have already begun to discover these modes of creative expression, but it's very early on, and exploration remains "hesitant."
I'm not bold enough to do more than dabble in this enterprise, but I shall enjoy dabbling and joining others is pushing a bit further toward the horizon.
Here are some fun digital art experiments from this month:
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We have evening skies in different style and luminous accents...
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...this one needed some careful detailed work.
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March is the last chance to "play" with bare branches: here in imitation watercolor...
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while these next two are "experiments" in prismatic colors....
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...and imitation textures.
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Late Winter colors can be dull...
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...or bright...
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...or ominous.
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But, as the closeup photographs show, Spring has begun to break through...
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as the Maple trees stir to life.
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| Finally, three trees on a hillside are seen as if in a dream. What a dream! |
