Enough seriousness already! Let’s take a look at some top-notch digital art that’s not about dragons, war, space battles, elven waifs, zombies, apocalyptic visions, or any of that serious stuff. Today’s gallery is nothing but lighthearted and whimsical. Funny, even. Most of these paintings were executed in Painter and/or Photoshop, though one is a 3D illustration. Nearly all come from the top award-winners on the Computer Graphics Society website.

 

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Abstract Fractal by Nathan Smith

Nathan Smith creates beautiful, intricate images using Photoshop and fractal art. (Check out this article for more about fractals and fractal generators.) The image above, “Abstract Fractal,” is composed mostly of elements created in Photoshop. The carved gold is made using layer styles applied to paths, all within Photoshop. The jewels (a signature part of many works by Smith) are also made in Photoshop. Nathan Smith shares his knowledge, as well as his many striking images, in his Deviant Art gallery (here). In the gallery, there’s a page of tutorials, where you can learn how these amazing images are made. Smith has generously provided a huge page full of Photoshop tutorials and videos here, on the Utah State University site. You can download many of Smith’s works as desktop art, on the Caedes website. As you can see, Nathan Smith’s generosity is as great as his artistic ability, which is considerable. It’s gives me great pleasure to share some of his work with you.

 

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It takes Photoshop chops and a sense of humor to stand out on Worth1000.

It’s hard to believe, but we have not featured (or even mentioned) Worth1000.com here on Digital Image Magazine. Tsk tsk. Worth1000 is a site where you can show off your Photoshop skills in various contests. There are some really outstanding photo manipulations here. Also, Worth1000 offers many tutorials. If you prefer hard copy, they also offer three books full of fun projects. I gave one to my teenage daughter, and she loved it. Projects like this are a great way to dive into Photoshop. Say you want to turn Tom Cruise into an alien…oh, wait. Bad example.

Okay, let’s say you want to create a marble bust of Anthony Hopkins.

Create your own memorial statue of your favorite celebrity...or yourself!

There are lots of different contest types, at various skill levels, so even if you’re a beginner, you can compete against other newbies. My favorite contest is the Modern Renaissance, which involves placing a celebrity into a famous painting. The best of these do more than simply replace a face; they match the style of the painting, as well.

Robin Williams painted by Durer.

This next is from the “You Are What You Eat” contest. Top entry: Pickleman.

Well, that small sampling gives you a taste (sorry, Pickleman) of the fabulous work on view over at Worth1000.com. Definitely worth wasting an hour or two. Check out the open contests, and go for it! By the way, Worth1000 is maintained by the same people responsible for Aviary.com, the online image editor. Aviary was a subscription-based service (with some free areas available), but they recently decided to make the app completely free to the world. So head on over to Aviary.com, and give it a spin. It’s not Photoshop, but hey! It’s free!

Don’t forget to vote in the Reader Poll, over on the right. If you’ve voted already, thank you!

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Cottingley, by louvre89, a rising star on deviantArt. This photomanipulation is made up of many images...but you'd never know it!

Two-dimensional digital art tends to fall into one of two main categories: Digital Painting and Photomanipulation. Under Digital Painting you’ll find Speed Painting (a quick rendering done freehand, usually with Photoshop), and digital painting (same as speed painting, but not so speedy). Photomanipulation refers to creating a new image by pasting together elements from other images, a sort of digital collage. These categories are just for convenience, however, and sometimes it’s hard to classify a given work. Photomanips, as they’re called, tend to include lots of digital painting, to help blend the elements together. As you can see, the line between them is blurry, and often totally arbitrary. Given this rather unhelpful introduction, I thought we’d take a look at the work of a rising star on deviantArt.com, named Louvre89. She’s a 20-something Australian artist who’s starting to get professional freelance assignments, and it’s no wonder: she’s very, very good. In today’s article, we’ll dissect the work above, “Cottingley,” to see how the artist combined images to create something new.

First off, I’d like to express my thanks to Louvre89 for taking the time to document, using links, each of the images she used in the creation of “Cottingley.” On deviantArt, it’s standard practice to credit the stock artists whose work you’ve used; but Louvre89 takes it one step further and creates a link pointing to the actual file used. This makes our work as detectives so much easier. If you’re interested in learning how photomanipulation works, I’d heartily recommend that you check out this artist’s works, and spend time exploring the link credits to see what she started with. I’ve actually done just that in putting this article together. I hope it will encourage you to explore on your own. It’s a great way to learn.

Stock Fantasy Background2, by deviantArt stock contributor anaRasha. This is a terriffic starting point.

Louvre89 began with the image above, by deviantArt stock artist anaRasha. This makes a great starting point, since it’s like a stage set, waiting for further details to be added. The perspective is simple two-point, so as along as all of your photos are taken straight-on, they’ll match the perspective easily. Imagine you’re sitting in a theatre, sitting in the very center of the orchestra section. You have before you a short foreground, and then a straight, flat wall of a background. This is a good, simple stage setting to create a convincing photomanip with. As you get more advanced, you can move on to three-point perspective, with aerial views, plunging canyons, high mountains, and so forth. But start simple.

Here's a quick refresher. Thanks to Helen South on About.com for the nice illustration of Two Point Perspective.

In the following gallery are the remaining images used to create “Cottingley.” I’m amazed, when I look at how these sort of images are made, at how creative the artist was in choosing the source images. The key seems to be imagination. Rarely will you find exactly the images you need out there in stock photo land. You’ll need to creatively crop them, adjust, warp, twist, and otherwise bend them to your will. For instance, look at how the artist cropped the image of the large tree to use for her main “tree house” image.

 

Thanks again to Louvre89. Be sure to stop by and check out her beautiful work!

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Odwin Rensen's portraits typically use dramatic lighting, such as in this example.

Chiaroscuro refers to the use of dramatic lighting in a painting, usually with very dark (almost black) darks, and very light (nearly white) highlights. This high contrast adds to the three-dimensionality of a painting, and it adds drama. A painting employing chiaroscuro really catches the eye. Digital portrait artist Odwin Rensen, from The Netherlands, often employs chiaroscuro in his work with great effect. Odwin was kind enough to answer some questions about himself, and give us a detailed description of his working methods.

What is your art training and background?

I have no training for except maybe some training DVD’s I purchased over the years (Fay Sirkis, Brad Buttry, Scott Deardorff). I have always been a creative person and am blessed with drawing skills so as soon as I could handle a crayon I started drawing. So my traditional media would be mainly pencil. My working background has nothing to do with art. I’ve been a system administrator for many years, but right now I am without a job. This made my realise that I really don’t want to work in ICT anymore and I am following a course in Design, DTP and web design hoping this will allow me to steer my career in a different direction. I have always been interested in art and design so for me this feels like the yellow brick road to follow.

What made you decide to begin using Corel Painter?

I started out with photo enhancement and later on making compositions from all kinds of images into a new original image. So after learning to work with Photoshop (PS) I soon discovered the options to draw and paint with PS, but for me there was always something missing. I am not saying that PS in not a great product, because it is, but I think it is not completely optimized for painting. So I started to look for alternatives, beginning with all kinds of software that promised to change photos into paintings, but they all are useless if you want a traditional looking style.

How did you learn Painter?

I followed some DVD tutorials to get me started, but I learn the most by just experimenting, making lots of mistakes and learning from them. I took me some time to really understand all the different functions and tools inside Painter.

Please talk about your working methods. Do you use Photoshop and filters?

Yes, I definitely use Photoshop, since I do not like the way Painter handles color correction. Photoshop does a much better job for altering hue and saturation, dodging and burning, layer masks, etc. That is why I always save my files in PSD format so I can jump back and forth between Painter and Photoshop. I sometimes use Painter’s Surface Texture tool to create an impasto look.

What are you currently working on with Painter? Do you do commissioned portraits?

I do commissioned portraits, but I find it very very difficult to get my digital art business off the ground. I’ve been to fairs, have my work displayed in art galleries, I have some work published in the Official Painter Magazine as well as the Advanced Photoshop magazine, but in the 2-3 years I am making these portraits I have never had a real order for a commissioned portrait painting. The problem is I am a creative person not a business person. So mainly I make these portraits for myself just because I love making them.

Any advice for artists trying to learn Painter?

When I first started out with Painter I thought I would never learn it because it looks so complicated, but by sticking with it it became easier and easier. So my top 3 tips would be 1) just keep on going and experiment with it and you will get better. You maybe will never use 100% Painter has to offer, but you will find out what works for you and create your own toolset. The same applies to Photoshop. 2) try some kind of training, there are some good training DVDs out there or have a look at www.digitalartacademy.com where they have all kinds of courses in Painter and Photoshop. 3) Don’t be discouraged in the beginning, remember that all beginning is hard, but no one can make what YOU make as every person is unique in the way we express ourselves in art.

Gallery of Odwin’s Work

Following the gallery, Odwin describes his working methods in detail.

 

Working Methods

First I adjust the photo in PS, alter the color, rotate the photo a bit, resize it and finally sharpen the photo with a Highpass filter: duplicate layer, filter>other>highpass and turn the levels so you get some details of the photo back but don’t over do it. Next set layer blend mode to Overlay or Soft light and play with the opacity the get the result we want. Then I save it as a PSD file and open it in Painter.

The next phase is to get rid of all the photographic noise in the picture. For that I just use a slightly altered version of the Grainy Water blender. With that brush I repaint the whole skin (face, hands etc.), with a smudge technique, I use very very little pen pressure and follow the contours of the face, but keep in mind that the colors do not mix too much else it is going to look “dirty” and we change to way the person looks.
 The same procedure I use for the hair and eyebrows, but I use the Acrylic Captured Bristle brush and follow the direction of the hair. I use a small brush and also little pen pressure.

After I have done the whole head, I just roughly paint over the clothes with the normal Grainy Water blender, more pen pressure and bigger brush, just painting over the clothes in big loose strokes.

 After I placed the foundation, the next step is to dramatize the highlights and shadows. So first I bring in some hotspots on the nose, chin, cheeks, keeping in mind where the original light source is coming from in the photo. For this I use an Airbrush or a Chalk if you want a bit more texture and just blend it back in with the Grainy Water brush. I save the painting (PSD) and go back to PS.

I use Select>color range and put the eyedropper on one the hotpots and adjust the Fuzzy level to get a nice selection of all the lighter colors in the face, don’t bother about the background if it gets selected. If you don’t want that you can also roughly select all the skin with the Lasso Tool and then do a Select>Color range, so you only select from the lasso selection. Either way with the highlights selected I go to Curves and move the white slider to the left until I get these nice painterly highlights. I do the same for the shadows, putting the eyedropper on a dark (shadow) part of the face.



Now it already start to look like a painting. Going back to Painter and I just keep adding in more detail to the painting, highlighting shiny stuff, hair strands, eyes. For this I use the dodge/burn tool with a 3-4 px brush at 12% and just draw in light and dark hairs, reflections. For the highlights in the eyes I use the FX Glow brush (clone color and clone source set to painting). When I am done adding all the little details (which in the end give a huge effect) I make the plans for the background or better said, the foreground is becoming the background. So that is the next step : the background.



I duplicate the layer of the painting and select the Living Oils Oil Sponge Large HSV5 (this is a very painterly brush I picked up from the internet) brush and just start to “destroy” the duplicated layer with that brush. So I use the painting itself to create a nice raw painted background, already keeping in mind where the light comes from and where the shadow of the person should be. When you have done that you should not be able to recognize what that painting was, off course we still have the original layer on the bottom. After saving the file and opening it in PS, I put a layer mask on the top layer, which will be our background. Now with the mask icon selected, the foreground color set to black, I use a painterly brush (one of Richard Ramsey’s) with 60-70 % opacity and softly start to paint on the top layer. I start to bring out the eyes and center of the face, than I move to the rest of the head. When the face becomes visible I select a soft brush, opacity 20-30 % flow 20% and keep on bringing forward the face until it is nicely blended with background (if some of the original layer is coming through do not bother yet, you can blend that in later).

Now it is time for the magic trick. The painting will look soft, blurry, misty, blended so now, with the mask icon of the top layer still selected I use the soft brush 100% opacity/flow and make the brush size a bit larger than the eye is and start to paint over the eyes. By doing this the eyes will start to “pop out” of the painting. I follow this procedure for all other parts I want to pop out. 

Now the painting is almost finished and we need to bring in a little more drama. So open it in PS, make a new layer and fill it with the darkest color of the painting. Next make a layer mask and select a soft brush (opacity 20-30%) set color to black and paint back the face, starting from the light source all the way to the dark part of the painting. Set opacity to 50-60% and again start painting back the face, parts you want to keep dark you just don’t paint over. Finally you set the opacity to 100% and bring back those parts that should be in full light. The last step is a level and saturation adjustment, just adjust it to your taste.



So this is basically the structure I use for my paintings, of course I experiment a lot with different brushes etc, but for a guide I use what I just described. Hope you find it helpful and it is my way of saying THANKS!!!!

You can see more of Odwin’s work–and contact him for portrait commission work–at his website, www.studiowin.com.

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Old Lady by Odwin Jensen

I’ve decided that this week’s article is going to be sheer eye candy. For one thing, I notice there hasn’t been an Inspiration article since July, and for another, I’ve got a bad cold. And for yet another thing, this is the 100th post to the Digital Image Magazine! So I’m just taking it easy today, posting some of my favorite work by some digital artists. It’s my pleasure to draw attention to these amazing up-and-coming artists. Enjoy!

PS – click on an artist’s name to go to his/her website or gallery.

Odwin Rensen

This Dutch artist has a phenomenal style. I’ve included one before/after example (top), so you can see how much he adds to the work. His portraits are very realistic, and yet they are also very much paintings. This is a hard thing to achieve, and Odwin Rensen makes it look easy. I’m hoping to get Mr. Rensen to write a tutorial for Digital Image. Stay tuned!

Tribute to George Carlin by Odwin Rensen.

Phil McDarby

This artist, from Dublin, Ireland, brings a whole new meaning to the term “photo manipulation”. McDarby does amazing things with crazy numbers of layers, creating some truly magical work. He also uses 3D software, such as Maya, his own photography, and a Wacom tablet for painting. From his website: “At the heart of his work is a desire to capture a sense of magic and wonder – that feeling of child-like excitement and discovery that we can lose touch with as adults.”

Magic by Phil McDarby

Imagine by Phil McDarby

Wonder by Phil McDarby.

Jeff Johnson

This painting came out of a tutorial in Corel Painter Magazine, issue no. 2. He’s really nailed that old Flemish style.

Flemish style portrait by Jeff Johnson.

Randis Albion

Albion’s work brings fantasy into the modern-day world. Click on the image to see a larger version.

Deep Diver by Randis Albion

Kobi McKenzie

Kobi is one of my favorite artists on the Corel Painter Magazine member’s gallery. She does wonderful portraits of children, especially playing team sports. Check out the marvelous background in the portrait of the football player. Click on her name to visit Kobi.

Somana by Kobi McKenzie.

Cetin Tuker

Turkish artist Cetin Tuker created the following image using 3D Max 7. It took over 130 hours! I love this image. It has a very painterly, old-world feel.

Sad Street by Cetin Tuker

Gilles Tran

Last but not least is Gilles Tran, from Paris, who is an agronomist by day and an artist by night. He seems to be less active in recent years, but in the early 00’s he was producing some of the most original–and sometimes hysterically funny–3D images to be found anywhere. I’ve got one of his posters on my wall. Couldn’t leave without mentioning the amazing Mssr. Tran. His site is a work of art in itself. Enjoy!

Elephants Standing on Mini Coopers by Gilles Tran

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Stephen Vincent Benet commemorative stamp. Original art by Michael J. Deas.

Creating a celebrity’s likeness is a challenge for a portrait artist. Unless you happen to be a famous portrait artist, like Simmie Knox , you probably won’t be working from the live model, but from someone else’s photograph. (This presents copyright issues, which I won’t go into here. Just be aware that most photographs of celebrities are protected by copyright law, and copying such a photo (whether with a pencil or a Xerox copier) is likely a copyright violation. Something to be aware of.) Even famous portrait artists sometimes have to work from photographs. For example, by law, US postage stamps can only depict images of actual people once they have died. So how do you paint a color portrait of someone when all you have for reference is old black and white photographs?

2009 postage stamp commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, by Michael J. Deas.

Master portrait artist Michael J. Deas has faced this predicament many times. Deas has created 16 commemorative stamps for the US Postal Service, including James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, Carey Grant, and most recently, Edgar Allan Poe. Below, you can see one of the photo references Deas worked from. Deas has done more than simply “colorize” an old photograph. His portrait looks like the man actually sat for the artist. The eyes have life in them that is not really present in the black and white photo. Poe seems a bit more handsome and confident in Deas’s painting. Deas has made some artistic decisions to make the portrait work better, such as changing the color of Poe’s coat from some light color to dark brown. The background is dark with a glowing center, giving it the look of a classic portrait. His hair looks curlier, as though he’s skipped the Brilliantine today. Overall, it’s just an amazing piece of work.

The full portrait of Poe by Michael J. Deas. Reference photo inset.

Perhaps the most famous of Deas stamps is his portrait of Marilyn Monroe, of which an astounding 400 million copies were printed. As you can see, even when working from a color photograph, Deas did not just copy an existing photo. He used a photo for the face, but used a model friend to pose the hand and body. The result looks completely natural and lifelike, as if it were based on an authentic, previously-unknown photo. This is true of all Deas’s work.

Portrait of Marilyn Monroe for 1992 postage stamp, by Michael J. Deas, left. Reference photo, right.

Here’s a classic example of Deas’s ability to create authentic-looking portraits. I’m assuming the photo was combined with a shot of a model dressed as Mark Twain for reference. The result is completely convincing and authentic. Due to Deas’s skill, we now have a living, breathing portrait of Mark Twain.

Portrait of Mark Twain by Michael J. Deas. Compare with the black and white reference photo.

This next example just blows my mind. Even when Deas does not add to the existing reference photo, as with Twain and Monroe, he manages to bring out more information than exists in the original photo. His skin tones are made up, obviously, but they’re utterly convincing. His knowledge of anatomy, and skill in capturing a likeness, overcomes the lack of detail in the original. To the art critics who think “copying photographs” does not take talent and skill, I’d point to this portrait as a counterargument.

Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt, by Michael J. Deas. Based on inset reference photo.

Beginning portrait artists can learn a lot from the following portrait of Cary Grant. Beginners tend to trust photographs implicitly, and copy whatever has been faithfully recorded by the camera. The problem is the camera is limited, and often does a poor job of capturing reality. The shadows under the eyebrows are too stark and black, for one thing. And in this case, the art director for the USPS (United States Postal Service) wanted the franking amount (37 cents back then) to appear in the lower right corner. Black tie dress was specified, therefore, to allow the number 37 to show clearly. For these reasons, the artist needs use the photograph as a means to an end: a good portrait. Deas used the reference photo as just that — reference– and created his own composition and design for the stamp. I’m guessing that, once again, a model or another photo of Grant was used for the costume change. The hands may be the original, just reversed, but I’d say another shot of someone’s hands was used. On the other hand, Deas seems to have an uncanny ability to work with very little good reference.

Portrait of Cary Grant, by Michael J. Deas. Notice the changes made by Deas from the original inset photo.

Our last Deas portrait is one that has me scratching my head. I have no idea what Deas used as reference for this portrait of Lincoln. The photo shown next to it here was probably used, but obviously there’s not enough there. Deas must have used other sources, and combined them to create this unique portrait. That’s an awe-inspiring talent, in my book. Keep an eye out for more Deas masterpieces, coming to a mailbox near you.

Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, by Michael J. Deas. Possible reference photo shown.

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A wonderful 3D rendering by Danish artist Karin Eszterhás.

My favorite part of writing this blog is when I get to showcase the work of artists that I admire. Today I’m happy to share with you the wonderful landscape, interior, and still life work of Karin Eszterhas. Karin lives in Copenhagen, Denmark, and makes her living as a sound engineer. She was first bitten by the CG bug back in 1999, when she was given Bryce as a present. She’s been hooked ever since. Since 2002, Karin has worked with 3DS Max for modelling, and VRay for rendering.

Mention the words “computer generated art,” and most people no doubt think of Imperial Star Destroyers or Iron Man. But the same toolset that can bring Gollum to life is equally well-suited to creating landscapes. In fact, the “matte paintings”, or painted backdrops, used in Hollywood films are usually digitally painted, using 2D and 3D tools. As Karin Eszterhas’ work shows, CG doesn’t have to look “computer generated” at all. To me, her work looks like classical paintings, lovingly crafted by hand.

In 3D work, the image begins as a framework, known as a “wireframe,” for obvious reasons. This first image shows just the grey model Karin created for her image of an old cloister. This is a 3DS Max image.

3D Max Studio 5 is used to create the basic model. Textures, color, lighting, and other details come next.

Next, Karin assigns textures to her model. These are often JPG images taken of actual textures with a digital camera.

Lighting and textures are applied to the model.

To complete the image, Karin adds some plant and tree models, and a 2D image of a cat. You can see her complete tutorial for this image on the 3DTotal website, here.

Old Cloister, by Karin Eszterhas.

The following is a slideshow gallery of my favorites by Karin Eszterhas. Click on any of the thumbnails below to begin. Enjoy!

 

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Aine of Knockaine, by Helena Nelson-Reed.

Helena Nelson-Reed is a fine artist from the Chicago suburb of Woodridge, Illinois. Her striking watercolors feature dream-like images of goddesses. “The writing of Jung, C.S Lewis, Joseph Campbell and Clarissa Pinkola-Estes has influenced my approach to interpreting archetype, myth and folklore on a personal, contemporary level,” says Nelson-Reed. She attended the American Academy of Art in Chicago, but soon found that the traditional commercial art techniques she had learned were being outmoded by the computer. “Rather than learn computer graphics I chose to paint and for several years was fairly successful in Chicago exhibits and shows,” Nelson-Reed says. “The exhibit and outdoor show routine became impossible as our family grew, nor did it supply the income of a ‘real’ job.” She kept painting and exhibiting while pursuing her degree and new career. A few years ago, Nelson-Reed began to look into the opportunities for selling her work online. We recently asked her about that experience.

Q: What made you decide to begin selling prints of your work online using print-on-demand? What sites have you used?

A: I wasn’t getting much traffic on my home site, and giclee sales had dropped, along with originals. I had to do something with a minimal investment in order to reach a broad audience, so I investigated Fine Art America along with sites like Zazzle and Imagekind. These sites [Zazzle and Imagekind] are cluttered and geared to enthusiastic amateurs, not serious artists. Individuals clog the search engines with dozens of images, often pages. No matter what I did, my work never showed up in a search engine even when using my name. Who wants to surf through pages of manga cartoons, adolescent tattoo doodles and stupid message images? Nobody. Fine Art America has a nice presentation and features amateur and professional artists alike who are serious about their work.

I can market my original image along side the prints. I make necklaces as well and have sold a couple from Fine Art America. They don’t exact a percentage of these original sales which is a great bonus. I’ve had customers in Australia, the Netherlands, Britain and Canada, and one from Greece.

My S/N [signed and numbered] giclees run from $250.00 to $650.00, not practical for many customers. Fine Art America grants the option of affordable prints at excellent prices and several sizes. These don’t conflict with the high end S/N giclees. I protect my S/N customers by offering either partial elements cropped from the large image, or making it available only in very small sizes. Many are open edition, but for some, if a customer wants the entire painting and in a large size like the original, they must still order the S/N giclee from me and these are printed by someone in my area so I can oversee the proofing and production.

Q. What else do you like about Fine Art America?
A. FAA is user friendly and I’m an analog dinosaur. Good papers and ink. I ordered a few samples of my work from similar sites and was really disappointed. They looked like they’d been
cut out of a magazine.

Q. Have you tried any other POD [print on demand] sites? What was that like?
A. Despite making over $580.00 retail in sales on a well known print/mug/t shirt site in 2 months, the percentage and surcharges they took reduced my entire royalty to only $32.00 – not enough to cover more than three months membership fees. I’ve never seen a dime and consider them a real waste of time and effort. Plus the mindset of an uninformed audience means lots of image theft and seeing your thumbnails turning up on other people’s products and websites – for sale. Now I use only FAA and one other site – and that other site sells my work only as greeting cards, calendars and laminated posters with my name and the image title beneath. There’s been some cross over traffic and sales between these sites, which is nice.

Q. How long have you been using Fine Art America?
A. Approximately 2 years.

Q. Are you satisfied with the sales you are receiving from FAA?
A. Yes, but if I can increase them that’s even better.

Q. Do you feel that print sales helps or hurts sales of your originals? (Some artists may feel that prints of their work competes with the originals for buyers.)
A. It helps, without a doubt. I’ve sold more originals from FAA then my home site. I’ve one local gallery that represents me, and I know the owner personally. Other than that I don’t use them because galleries take too high a percentage –my paintings can take a month or two of daily work and to make less than minimum for that is ridiculous. Also there’s too much nonsense, attitude, politics and time involved working with them. I made approximately $20,000.00 in sales of original art from FAA last year and $12,000.00 since January. My paintings range from $900.00 to $8000.00 Art is a feast or famine business and I might not sell any more for all of 2009, but it’s a good start and I’m happy.

Cycles of Selene, by Helena Nelson-Reed.

Q. Looking back, do you think you made the right choice, getting into print-on-demand?
A. Yes, it’s served me well and I’ve had repeat customers. My most recent sale was somebody who’d already bought an image of Rhiannon. She liked the small print so much that she contacted me and has just sent my her down payment and first installment.

Q. Any words of advice for our readers?
A. Good scans, the best you can afford. Sharpen and adjust at home, then order a small print so you can proof what’s being sent to customers. It might print a little different than on your monitor. If you put these small images in a bound portfolio, inside acetate sleeves, they make a nice way to present your work at shows (crowded booths) or when traveling.

Quality of your image. Recently I had a slide of older work scanned and out it on FAA. I’d seen the smaller print and was happy. Two customers ordered a large version. The printing capability of FAA is so exact that the tiny grains of dust and minute lint particles present on the slide when scanned were blown up along with the image. I was SO embarrassed! I take good care of my slides and didn’t even think to clean the slide first.

Many of the people on FAA are creatives or in the art business themselves. Many of my prints and several originals have been sold to other artists.

Finally, good service is imperative. Some artists make a rude, disorganized, or arrogant impression in their responses, probably without realizing it. Think about what you are writing, because this impression is the only way by which a stranger knows you. Many of my sales are generated by respectful prompt responses and simple courtesy. People remember and come back.

We invite you to visit Helena’s work at Fine Art America. You can also visit her home site here.

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Village Sunset, by Dominic Davison. Image created with Vue.

Dominic Davison is one of the finest landscape artists working today, displaying a Dutch romantic aesthetic using twenty-first century methods and tools. Though he uses a mouse instead of a paintbrush to create his images, it is his observant eye, his composition, and his use of color and light, which makes his images stand head and shoulders above his peers working in the digital media. As anyone who has tried to create a picture using 3D software knows, the computer doesn’t create the image any more than a paintbrush creates a painting. As it has always been, it is the eye and hand of the artist wielding the tools that determines the results. Or, as we used to say back in my IT days: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Davison cites 19th Century Dutch landscape master Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (1803-1862) as a major influence, and it shows. Compare the following painting by Koekkoek to some of the pieces by Davison in the gallery at the bottom.

Boslandschap Met Kapel: Sous Bois, by Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, 1850. Oil on panel.

The work of Dominic Davison shows that the Vue toolset, combined with some postwork in Photoshop, is capable of creating fine art on a par with the masters of past centuries. You can view his freelance contact information here.

 

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