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The current content and style of recent illustrations directly reflects my sources of interest and inspiration. From my student days when I first came across the delicate pen and ink work of Arthur Rackham, to the discovery in later years of the beautiful characters of James Christenson, and surrealistic dream images of Michael Parkes. These combined with a personal collection of old mechanical instruments and artifacts such as compasses, theodolytes, sextants and kaleidoscopes.
In the category of "digital art" there is a considerable amount of experimentation and techniques. The capacity of today's hardware and software lends itself to this approach, and some truly interesting imagery is coming out of it. Nevertheless I'm concerned there's too much of a tendency toward the manipulation of scanned or digital camera imagery via multiple and random applications of packaged special effect filters to achieve "artistic" results. This is obviously a very subjective and personal opinion so I won't take the topic any further, other than to say that for my part the technique I decide to use in my work, while very much using the capacity of this digital medium, isn't subject to it. I still control the pencil or brush so to speak, even if it's a virtual one. Having said that however..."what a pencil, and what a brush". While my style remains similar to my older non digital (traditional airbrush) work, this new medium has allowed me to introduce a greater degree of detail that to be quite frank I wouldn't have been previously capable of.
I've used Adobe Photoshop in my corporate work for a number of years, so I'm comfortable enough that its my software of choice, and allows me to pretty much reproduce most ideas and effects I wish. While I have a reasonably clear idea of my illustrations from the onset, I nevertheless use the capacity of layers, and color modes constantly, making adjustments to composition, color and light. This very often results in a different arrangement and mood to the one I originally planned. Another important feature is texture; I very deliberately break up the computer clean surfaces of the images by painting through a selection of custom prepared textured alpha channels. This adds a controllable tactile surface quality to the imagery where appropriate; i.e. rusted metal, rough stone.
AWARDS
MacWorld Digital Art Competition Winner.
2000, 2001 (Best of Show), 2003, 2005.
5 GURU Awards from the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), Photoshop World,
Tampa 2001 Artistic, and Best of Show.
Miami 2003 Artistic and Best of Show,
Miami 2006 Artistic.
Worldwide Digital Canvas Award 2006, Artistic Category.
Worldwide Photoshop Award 2007, Artistic Category
PUBLICATIONS.(Features)
Secrets of Award Winning Digital Artists.
By Jeremy Sutton & Daryl Wise. Published by John Wiley & Sons.
Photoshop User. Magazine 2001
Design Graphics Magazine 2003
Design Graphics Portfolio edition 2003
Step by Step Digitalm Design 2003
Digital Collage and Painting. by Susan Ruddick Bloom. Focal Press 2006.
Ballistic Publishing Expose 5 Digital Art Annual, page 18
SHOWS
Mark Wheeler Gallery, One man show, February 2007.
Bradington Florida Digital Art Show. Silver medal 2001
Cocnut Grove Juried Art Festival 2005, 2006 2007.
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