Still Life in Pixels

Digital painting is an everyday thing. Illustrators use digital methods, so do animators, cartoonists, and even fine artists. My own work in learning the digital medium has mostly been drawing, beginning with simple line work and then gradually moving into more complex renderings. During the time I've been working with digital drawing I've also done a bit of digital painting, experimenting with the medium and the various programs I've acquired.

"Study of Silver Reflections," digital, 2018

In previous posts about digital art I've written about convenience, lack of cleanup, and so on. And it's that ease of use that I find most attractive. Still, painting a traditional, full-color image using the computer is difficult until one feels comfortable with whatever program is being used. For practice I've done many different kinds of works, from cartoons to copies of Hokusai to animal drawings. But most of the work has been drawings. I've done a few full-color images of still life subjects, and also a few full portraits, too. Here are a few "painted" still life sketches, done for specific reasons or just to use the computer. For these I used Sketchbook and a Wacom tablet.

The first still life I did with the setup was a shiny silver cup and two pieces of fruit. My goal in part was to study how the metal reflected colors, but I was also working on mastering the program itself. The silver colors weren't easy to match by eye, but the wide versatility of digital color helped a lot. since I was much more interested in rendering the reflective metal and given that this was simply a study, the fruit were left unfinished and the background simply indicated by the shadow of the cup.

"Brass Cup," digital, 2018

Metal is interesting to paint whether shiny or dull. I used the same program and tools to study dull brass. The challenge with this particular study was the limited palette. I shaded in a dull grey-green behind the cup using an airbrush tool. The color of the metal and it's shadows were also part of my interest. Like the silver cup still life, I left the background otherwise undeveloped but spent a lot of time on the edges of the cup as they turned in light and in shadow, a study that would have been more difficult using traditional media.

"Dahlia," digital, 2019

Digital painting can be useful as a way to study all sorts of subjects. Certainly something complex as a peony or dahlia can be approached more easily simply because corrections can be readily made. This painting of a dahlia blossom was done quickly as a simple way to study the complex anatomy of the flower with it's 40 or 50 tiny florets and variable colors. Again since the main idea was to study the flower I left the background and even the leaves on the stem unfinished and vague.

Although painting with computer programs is done all the time by professionals in gaming, film, and illustration, in my hands its main use is studying various subjects. That experience then can translate into oil paint, or casein or watercolor. Perhaps a time will come when digital fine art will have gained a market, but for now drawings and studies will likely be my main computer art.