OVERVIEW
Digital vs Physical is an art piece that explores the different capabilities of digital art and physical art. My artistic practice has mostly been digital, whether it be through digital illustrations or 3D modeling. Through this piece, I wanted to explore bringing my digital art to the physical world. Instead of printing out my digital pieces, I utilized an AxiDraw to re-draw each layer with different paints and pens to replicate the drawing process.
Knowing the restrictions of color theory and the paint and pens I used, I decided to explore creating a new art piece from my digital pieces. I experimented with layering different types of pens and paint, manipulating the axi draw as it was drawn, and adding water while the AxiDraw was using watercolor pencils.
The final digital and physical drawings are related in content but can stand alone as both physical and digital pieces. In the end, they are not copies of each other. They are unique.
Keywords: Organic vs Generative ; Digital vs Physical
Programs utilized: Adobe Photoshop, Inkscape
Exhibited at:
2022 - Would you still love me if I was a worm?, Paris College of Art Gallery, Paris, France.
2022- End of Year Exhibition, Paris College of Art Gallery, Paris, France.
Knowing the restrictions of color theory and the paint and pens I used, I decided to explore creating a new art piece from my digital pieces. I experimented with layering different types of pens and paint, manipulating the axi draw as it was drawn, and adding water while the AxiDraw was using watercolor pencils.
The final digital and physical drawings are related in content but can stand alone as both physical and digital pieces. In the end, they are not copies of each other. They are unique.
Keywords: Organic vs Generative ; Digital vs Physical
Programs utilized: Adobe Photoshop, Inkscape
Exhibited at:
2022 - Would you still love me if I was a worm?, Paris College of Art Gallery, Paris, France.
2022- End of Year Exhibition, Paris College of Art Gallery, Paris, France.
REFERENCES
PROCESS
Kirby Mealer. AxiDraw experiements. 2022.
Originally, I wanted to combine my old digital art with p5.js to bring new life to my old digital art. Since I was never good at drawing backgrounds, I found using generative art to be a good solution.The issue I ran into is that I did not save enough Photoshop files to turn them into vectors to use in the AxiDraw, and it was hard to create backgrounds that would fit into the drawings since the foreground was created without considering what the backgrounds would be.
The first drawings that I did explored the hidden layers within the Photoshop files. In the original digital drawings, you would not see the multiple sketch layers. I also started on just sketchbook paper, which made it hard when I used watercolor pencil because the paper would wrinkle.
When I bought watercolor paper, I first tried on a digital drawing from December 2020. Instead of trying to simulate the original colors, I took this as an opportunity to see how different drawing materials layer on each other. I used sharpies, watercolor pencils, highlighters, and ink. This test laid the foundation for how I was going to create the final pieces.
The first drawings that I did explored the hidden layers within the Photoshop files. In the original digital drawings, you would not see the multiple sketch layers. I also started on just sketchbook paper, which made it hard when I used watercolor pencil because the paper would wrinkle.
When I bought watercolor paper, I first tried on a digital drawing from December 2020. Instead of trying to simulate the original colors, I took this as an opportunity to see how different drawing materials layer on each other. I used sharpies, watercolor pencils, highlighters, and ink. This test laid the foundation for how I was going to create the final pieces.
Individual layers of the crow drawing. Kirby Mealer. A5. Watercolor Paper.
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On smaller pieces of paper I demonstrated what each singular layer looked like and arranged them in the order of which the AxiDraw would create them. This is similar to the layers you can easily visualize on a digital photoshop file, but is typically something not seen in physical pieces unless they are progression images.
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Why use the AxiDraw?
The AxiDraw is being considered as a collaborator in this instance because I am giving it the drawing tools, but it is the one recreating my pre-created line work. Instead of leaving the AxiDraw alone to draw each layer, I am interfering with it by following the movements with a wet watercolor brush when I use watercolor pencils. I chose to use the AxiDraw instead of printing out the digital pieces because I can easily choose different types of drawing utensils (sharpies, pens, highlighters, pencils, ect) which is more similar to how artists use different materials to achieve specific looks and textures when painting or similarly with screen printing one layer at a time. Without doing this, the drawings would look more flat. Photoshop and Inkscape I first created the drawings entirely digitally in Adobe Photoshop with drawing techniques that I am familiar with. In photoshop it is raster based, so I was able to freely stroke and sketch like I usually do. Each piece has about 10 layers (including the background layer). I used a variety of brush types, thickness, and colors that I can easily manipulate in Photoshop. In Inkscape, I converted each individual drawing layer to a vector so that the AxiDraw can draw it, which caused a smoothing effect in the drawings but also a loss in detail since opacity does not translate from raster to vector. Limitations There are limitations to creating the physical drawings that do not exist in the digital. With the physical drawings, the different thickness of the materials affected the line art positions on the final paper. The thicker the utensil, the more to the left the final stroke would be. |
Progression of deer drawing. Kirby Mealer. Adobe Photoshop. 2022.
Screen capture of Inkscape. Kirby Mealer. Inkscape. 2022.
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