Diane Clancy's Art Blog

This is the Studio Artist demo that some of you have been asking me to create. This is a 22 step creation of a digital painting in Studio Artist to show you a demonstration of how to use this innovative art program. I have decided to use the same size images I usually use. I want to give you a better flow than I think you will get from going back and forth between thumbnails and enlargements. But for the workspace and the final image I am providing the thumbnails so you can look at the enlargement if you want. Of course any of the other enlargements are available on request.

This is what the workspace looks like. Here is a screen shot of the program after I have already done some steps so you can see which part of the workspace is the source image and which is the canvas. Studio Artist always has a source image, but there are many ways to use this source image including use of the colors, the image to manipulate and not at all.

Workspace

I am putting in a thumbnail that you can look at full size in case you want to see more of a closeup of the controls of the program. This is the identical image but it will blow up larger.

I use the acrylic painting “Fire and Air” (that I have been using for the series of digital paintings in posts the last couple of weeks) for the source image. I bring the source image onto the canvas to start this creative process. In other words, I tell the program to place this image on to the working canvas so that I may begin to manipulate this image.

Fire and Air – the original painting, Acrylic © Diane Clancy

Then using the “interactive warp” operation with the “translate” tool (as opposed to the “translate local” tool), I grab the curvaceous yellow curve in the upper right hand corner and pull the image a little down and to the left. You can see the reflecting, both vertically and horizontally, of the yellow curve. If I had dragged in only one direction, it would have reflected in only that direction.

Step 1, Digital © Diane Clancy

Using the same tool I again grab the upper right hand corner with the yellow curves and drag them a little to the left and substantially down. Notice that the doubled curve doubled again. If I had originally kept dragging, it would not have doubled again. Each time I stop, the whole operation starts anew with the new resulting image. Notice the way we have pretty much lost the green. But the striped reefs (I think someone called them) have also expanded and doubled.

Step 2, Digital © Diane Clancy

Looks like I then repeat the process … I couldn’t duplicate it. There are many subtle decisions – just like in traditional painting – that are hard to exactly duplicate. (At least for me.) Fortuitous happenings happen here too.

Step 3, Digital © Diane Clancy

I translate this image again moving to the right and upward, this time to try to bring more of the stripped reef back in. The yellow curves got a little dominating so I wanted to bring back more contrast. In the process the little pieces of the reef at the top and bottom left get more substance.

Step 4, Digital © Diane Clancy

Using the interactive warp operation with the “rotate” tool (as opposed to the “rotate local,” “rotate scale,” or “rotate3symmetry” tools), I grab the reef and work to keep it prominent but at a tilt.

Step 5, Digital © Diane Clancy

I return to the translate tool and grab the reef and pull it down and to the left. This gives me a lot of texture back.

Step 6, Digital © Diane Clancy

Then I rotate it again to give it more tilt since many of you like that off-symmetry. Now we move to a different kind of technique. The new base canvas has basically been set up for more of a dissimilar kind of movement.

Step 7, Digital © Diane Clancy

I use the interactive warp operation of “sphere” (as opposed to “sphere1” or “sphere2”). If you look to the center and then a little up and to the right, you will see this swirl … or umbrella as it has been called. This is where doing a video would be very effective.

All these tools are “interactive” – you can use them and create and see changes in real time. These spheres are something else though – they are gorgeous in the way they move and ebb and flow, right before your very eyes. But if I stop to take a screen shot, then I cannot get back the same image. It is extremely interactive – it is not sequential, but live time!

Step 8, Digital © Diane Clancy

Another sphere or umbrella up is at the top to the left of the center.

Step 9, Digital © Diane Clancy

For the next few shots I go in for close-ups to try to give the feel of the fluidity. We are working near the center, near the first sphere. This tool of the interactive warp operation is “sphere2.” I make a move with the tool, take a screen shot and repeat the process a couple of times to show you the movement.

Step 10, Digital © Diane Clancy

Step 11, Digital © Diane Clancy

Step 12, Digital © Diane Clancy

Step 13, Digital © Diane Clancy

I make another shape or umbrella with sphere 2 near the left edge of the image, just over halfway up. To me it is starting to look like a street scene as someone mentioned about another painting.

Step 14, Digital © Diane Clancy

Then there is another swirl (technically named “sphere”) or umbrella, basically between these last 2 spheres and down a little. That’s starting to look like a street corner to me.

Step 15, Digital © Diane Clancy

Going back to the top of this painting, I use the interactive warp operation with the sphere1 tool to create another movement there on the left. With all of these sphere tools, there is an incredible amount of interactivity while using these tools. I wouldn’t call it a lot of control, but certainly a lot of choice and possibility!

Step 16, Digital © Diane Clancy

Slightly to the right of this last umbrella, another one pops up.

Step 17, Digital © Diane Clancy

Between these last 2 umbrellas is an overlapping third one, also created with the sphere1 tool. These spheres warp wildly as I use this tool.

Step 18, Digital © Diane Clancy

Going back to the sphere2 tool, I make another umbrella near the bottom left corner. It just seems the city needs another umbrella there!

Step 19, Digital © Diane Clancy

I rotate the whole image again a little to the left and up to get more movement in the painting. It breaks up the upper right hand corner that I think was a little too static and adds some interest to the bottom left corner.

Step 20 Digital © Diane Clancy

I decide another umbrella is needed near the bottom right corner. This is sphere2 that creates the “eye” looking spheres. The sphere tool creates translucent looking spheres and sphere2 creates more circular, more regular spheres.

Step 21, Digital © Diane Clancy

One last umbrella is created above and slightly to the right of the last umbrella. It is odd – things start out as shapes for me and then become specific things as I keep playing with a painting. This happens in both traditional and digital medium paintings.

Step 22, Digital © Diane Clancy

OK – now that we have created this painting, we still have to name it. Some ideas I have are Streetscape I (because surely there will be more like this), Umbrellas in the Rain, Looking Down from Floor 25, Theater Square … do you have any to add?

Using this program is like using any creative tool. Each little step can look obvious and manageable, but each step involves choice and techniques. If you start with the same tools, similar ideas, the same source image, you will get a different result than I will. This is because we each bring all our vision and experience to bear on each decision we make – including the artistic ones.

I hope this was helpful to you! As all writing in every blog, this material is © copyrighted. Thank you for taking the time and having the interest to read and follow this demonstration.

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: digital painting, Studio Artist, demonstration, creative process

First off, am I to assume the thumbnails work for the Studio Artist demo?

Rima Koleilat of MaraZine blog (marayagalleries.blogspot.com) has issued a digital challenge in this post here. Rima is asking anyone interested to download the same digital image and make an painting with it. You can download it from this post, here on my blog … then the thumbnail will expand and you can download the file. There are a few simple rules you can read in Rima’s post – and a deadline!! I am joining in with the fun and I hope you will too. Anyone may play!

Ferris Wheel, Digital © Diane Clancy

Rima adds about this challenge “It would be nice to have more people try their hand at interpreting the same picture, with varying degrees of know-how. I think for a lot of our readers and fellow bloggers, it would be a little push in a different direction – always good for creativity muscles. ” Sue, I can’t wait to see the mandala you make – though you can make another picture too.

Lily Pad for Rima’s Challenge

Rima also wrote in a comment on this blog,”I do enjoy your “unsymmetrical” work, I find it more expressive of your gentleness.” I asked Rima for elaboration to better understand what she is meaning. This is what Rima answered, “I like all of your work, but I do like the “looser” designs most: like “Expansion” (it blew my mind, I loved that one) – very profound, and pieces like “In the Garden” with the Buddha in the flowers ) – so gentle and beautiful.”

Rima continues, “In the more “designy” series, works like in these posts: Castles in the Air and Can this be a Circus (my “umbrellas”!) still have some symmetry … but … it’s like you decided to play instead of painting, and the result is more energetic.”

With these thoughts in mind, I decided to push to go to a different place with Studio Artist today to create a painting for this post. When I have an actual paint brush in my hand, unless I am using masking tape for the straight edge “Luminous Angles” series, you probably never see a really straight line. But the way I have been using this program, I am generating lots and lots of straight lines. It is a little funny, odd funny. Here is one the Luminous Angles, “Dance of Life” if you want to check it out.

But, then again, Rima is really talking about symmetry rather than straight lines. And I guess it is symmetry rather than straight lines that Studio Artist generates so easily with the tools I have been using lately. So funny, Rima says symmetry and I hear straight lines. I will have to think why that is. I was going to edit out a chunk of my writing once I realized that straight lines were never even being mentioned, but I thought it might be interesting to follow where and how my mind travels.
Giving me lots to think about as I create. Thank you so much, Rima, for taking the time to think and write about my work!! But the best news is … I have been creating lots of new work lately! And one big reason I have been painting digitally is to show you some ideas. So, a big thank you!!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Rima Koleilat, digital challenge, Studio Artist, symmetry

What do you think of this? Also, below, I have put one thumbnail to test if this is going to work for the Studio Artist demo I have prepared. Is this big enough? I randomly gave you “Step 6″ as a preview.

Beyond XV, Digital © Diane Clancy

Step 6

I don’t feel well too well again so I am going to keep this very brief.  Instead I caught up on reading and posting on your blogs today.  All the business cards are coming on Tuesday – I am very excited.  Those who wanted real life copies, please email me your name and address. Thank you again for being in my life!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Studio Artist, business card

That kitty with the blue whiskers is at the controls again! Green leaves, structure, pillars, yellow and blue, deep blue sky, Star Wars faces, green bow-tie, the mothership is landing, bridges over the river, towers into the sky, arms embracing, reefs, fish, divers, theater, curtains, masks … what do you see, think or feel?

Beyond XIV, Digital © Diane Clancy

I have created a 22 step demonstration of Studio Artist. I have written the text and also prepared the images. So you WILL see it very soon! There will be a total of 24 images with the post … so hopefully, I can use thumbnails and have you able to go bigger if you want to look at some them more closely. I am pretty excited!

Just got back home … going to bed. Our muffler started dragging on the highway and we pulled over. Eventually an angel came by and helped us! He got off the next exit and came all the way around again to help us!! He was a kind young man who went under the car with a chain and tied up the muffler to we could get home.  We are both VERY grateful!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: demonstration, Studio Artist

Starry night, gift of the soul, delicacy, feminine, northern lights, pac woman (see, that’s different!), matrix of healing and light above the earth, lightening, electricity, macro level, micro level, cell synapses, molecules, dna chains, fluid, cell nucleus, chains of life, chains of love, the mothership in space, ramping up to warp speed, Ukrainian decorated egg … What do you see?  Any thoughts or feelings?

Beyond XII, Digital © Diane Clancy

Wow!  What fantastic comments everyone has made! They all came to my email box today and it was better than Christmas!!  I agree these images need names and not numbers. For me it worked ok with Beyond I and II – the original ones … but all this experimentation without real names is confusing to me too! But I thought they were better than what I have the originals stored as “Fire and Air.tif-proc50″ and such. The store is officially open for any name suggestions of any of this series!

This all started out just to share more with you about how Studio Artist works. By the way, once I rename them, do I go back and change the names in the posts ~ or not? This is more of this stuff about life where if you do stuff right at the beginning it is easier! Who said life and art were pretty much the same? (oh, right, me anyway)

Great idea to put them all together! Such fun to hear about figures and images in these paintings! I like African. Rima says, ” I do enjoy your “unsymetrical” work, I find it more expressive of your gentleness.” – I would never have thought of things that way … more to think about ~ I sure would like to hear more about that! (I will link to your blog another time, Rima, but with limited access, too challenging – but write more about it and in 2 days I will have good access again.)

So, it sounds like these might be worth naming and saving? I was just playing .. but often some of my good work comes from play. I like to have an idea and try it in different ways … and see where it goes.

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: comments, Studio Artist, titles

Ta da! This is the original acrylic painting that was used as a source image in Studio Artist for all those “Beyond” digital images. I’ll bet that if you look at the Beyonds, you will recognize some of the design elements from this acrylic painting.

Fire and Air, Acrylic © Diane Clancy

In Studio Artist you start with a source image. You can start with a canvas that is white, black, any other color, texture or an image (among other things.) Then there are really cool tools with which you can manipulate the canvas. One of the main ones I used in this creative process was an “interactive warp” of the type “translate.”

I will do a post soon with some pictures of the process I am going through as I do this. I move the canvas around, grab it again and move it again … and again. Each time I move the canvas again, I have different choices to work from. Each “translation” is a decision which opens up and also limits the choices I next have. Sounds like life to me.

Sometimes I get to a place where things start to be fairly subtle variations of each other because the source material has a lot of uniformity. Sometimes I get to a dead end where I don’t like the resulting image and there is no significant way to move forward … so I go start over again. Ever done that one in life?

This process (again like life) has a lot of chance and opportunity to it. I am not usually able to duplicate a process – there are always variations where I grab the source image. Sometimes in creating this series to post on this blog, I was trying to make things come out the same to try to have more control. Then I gave up and more allowed myself to be more guided as to which way to move and paint.

Thank you for staying with me and indulging my showing you results from this one acrylic painting. I had a lot of fun and played with it to have something new for you for each day ~ to give a broader sense of what one can create from this one painting with a small set of tools.

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: acrylic, Studio Artist, creative process

The colors of this digital painting look like Beyond I and Beyond II to me. But the structure of the painting reminds me of Beyond IV, which Sue called a portal. Or perhaps a double portal. I guess it looks a little like Beyond VI also. I think most of paintings deserve better names … and they will get them. Some of them anyway.

Beyond IX, Digital © Diane Clancy

Have you noticed that these digital images are listed in both the acrylic and digital sections of “Diane’s Sketch Book”? hmmm … there might be a reason for that. I don’t remember seeing that ever before we got to this Beyond series. hmmm … Studio Artist is also a category this is listed in … I see the wheels spinning in your minds already!

Right now both Susan and I have window displays in local downtown stores. The local Artists Group of Franklin County has been working with the Greenfield Business Association to get the town ready. There is a progressive dinner tonight where 60 people (in groups of 20) are going to 6 different restaurants for one course after another. It is a pretty exciting example of artists and business people working together to build the creative economy in our county.

Who knows … maybe I will … dear I say it … sell a piece!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: digital painting, Studio Artist, Artists Group of Franklin County, creative economy

Thank you for all your good wishes on the business card post! Also, I forgot to tell you yesterday that Susan Elkin has posted her finalized business card too. The people who have been coming to these blogs have been an incredible help ~ people are really feeling like community!

Beyond VIII, Digital © Diane Clancy

To me, this looks like the movie, “The Girl with the Pearl Earring.” There is something about the colors of this – especially the yellow and blue that reminds me of that era.

This looks more like a design, like Beyond I and Beyond II, whereas many of these other digital paintings look more like an image, as if they are telling a story. Tomorrow you are going to see Beyond IX and the next day I will share how I made these images.

Do you have any thoughts or feelings? Please share them.

~ Diane Clancy

Whoops ~ I am prepping the cards for printing and decided the other version needing tweaking … so here it is …

Art Biz Card Changed, Digital © Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: business card, community, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, color, design, digital paintings

Talk about town … these figures are very busy chatting up a storm … I wonder what the topic is … They almost look as if they are gathering at the village well – where all the important news gets shared. Or is this a vertical painting – a portal with figures guarding the doorway, perched on the top?

Beyond VII, Digital © Diane Clancy

I think it fun to see all the different ways to put together the same design elements. In creativity I often find it useful to constrain the variables so I am forced to be creative within limits rather than in total freedom.

Tomorrow I will share the chosen business cards ~ I haven’t had time to prepare the files to upload for the blog yet.

Do you have any thoughts or feelings to share?

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: design elements, creativity

I am having lots of fun playing and making these digital paintings ~ are you? I sure hope so … it is being a lot of fun to just play and see what happens … Neda, is this your Golden Rule? I love the texture in the blue … and how it relates to the yellow. I may well rename some of these later … right now I just want to have fun.

Beyond VI, Digital © Diane Clancy

I got  caught up today with the work of documenting my finances for the art business … thank goodness that is done! I waited too long so it was hard to recreate the details. Please remind me to keep up better!

But tomorrow I should be able to get back to  … ta da … the business card. Hopefully that can get wrapped up tomorrow. Thank you for being in my life and in our community!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: digital paintings, Golden Rule, business card, color