Showing posts with label process sketch computer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label process sketch computer. Show all posts

Thursday, January 28, 2010

The computer as painting tool - an argument

Lost in the Forest (digital sketch)

©2010 Caroline Roberts

For some time an argument has been going on in my head between the two halves of my brain:

Left Brain: You can't use the computer to sketch with, that's Cheating.

right brain: Huh? But it's fun.

Left Brain (getting down a "Manual of Painting" full of checklists and rules): See here, Leonardo ground his own colors, Picasso used tube paints so I guess you can, but he definitely did not use a computer. He sketched. It's meant to be Hard Work.

(Left Brain really loves capitalizing things)

right brain: Yes, but didn't the Impressionists leap on the new chemical colors while the Paris Salons argued that it just wasn't right to have color in paintings instead of sludge brown? And you like the Impressionists right?

Left Brain (pouting): That's Different. Computers are Cheating. They're mechanical, not intuitive.

right brain: So, art should be intuitive but it has all these rules. Yeah... I'm going to work on the computer anyhow.

Two hours later...

right brain: See, this is cool, and fun, and totally intuitive. I did draw that, just with a digital pen and all that moving stuff around and adjusting things - that is not mechanical.

Left Brain (sulking now): It's Cheating.

right brain: I bet you think I should really be painting by candlelight in a dark cave with fingers and ground up dirt.

Left Brain: Now you're being sarcastic.

right brain: Yup.