I'm a digital artist and the work I create is an odd size. Pictures are either horizontally formatted or vertically formatted, but they are all around twice as wide as the are tall, or twice as tall as they are wide. So, when I size them down to 1920 pixels on the longest size, there is lots of black space. I'm considering showing cropped sections of these paintings for Zapp for my applications. I can crop some of them so they look pretty good in a square format. But when a juror looks at the booth shot, they will see the actual pictures in the booth, not the cropped ones I use for the jury. The cropped pictures will definitely have more impact, but is it kosher to show cropped images? Anybody out there have an opinion on this?
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John, part of the charm of your pieces is the strong vertical or horizontal format. It contributes to the design and feel of the finished piece. To change the format for the sake of a Zapp photo seems to change your work in a significant, and not altogether helpful, way.
I think the vertical example Alison showed is gorgeous, and your work shown in their full glory would be just as striking. In my experience on juries, I would much rather see the work in its original, pure form.
Sadly, many times the jurors don't hear the 100-200 character description, so although you can explain your technique in that section you can't depend on the jurors every hearing it.
Yep. That all makes sense to me. What I think is so great about John's work is not so much the detail (and certainly not the digital brush strokes), but the conceptualization--the idea behind any given piece--and you need the whole image to see and understand that.
Slàinte!
I am under the impression that John is applying in the "Digital" category, not "Painting." He even referred to himself as a "digital artist" in his first sentence of this thread. He just hopes that judges will see his work as paintings rather than as photos, as he put it upthread. I think they'll see it as "Digital Imaging" and not either as paintings or photographs. The irony here is that his printed output could very well be the same material as that of a digital photographer's since they're both likely to use the same Epson or Canon printers if not whatever they're using to print digital work on metal.
I think that what John says in his description has to define what he does without using words that already have very well defined meanings. That might help his application success more than by trying to fill up the 1920 pixel space in zapp with more of the artwork image.
But back to that, I think having long skinny images is a problem for some of us. It has been for me, and I've avoided using them. I haven't ever had the gumption to use three of the same long skinny format, though. So that might not be as much a problem as John thinks. Alison T. showed us a good example upthread and seems to be doing fine with the long skinny images.
One thing going for the application with three long skinny jury images is the booth shot. If judges can recognize some of the jury images hanging in the booth, then they'll most likely see the scope of things. I'm not a one format, size and shape artwork kinda guy, though. So my booth would never look so uniform as that.
I do think the term "digital painting" is confusing, and if you were to combine that with close-ups that show digitally rendered brush strokes, jurors might well feel they were being tricked. I love your work too, John, and think you'd get into all the shows you want to get into if you showed the full images rather than close-ups, and then described your process in the places provided for that. But some shows want painters to bring most of their work as original one-of-a-kind pieces, and you don't have that. What you have is consistent with the mediums of photography and of digital art, and I think calling it "digital painting" and jurying as a painter is simply jurying out of category.
You already know I like your art, John. I've told you that already in another thread. I want to see you get in all the shows in which you want to show. I'm offering my comments with your success in mind. When and if I become a juror, this dialog with you will help me be informed about what you and other digital artists say that you do.
Thanks, Barrie. Herein lies the problem with digital art. There are as many ways of producing art with the computer as there are digital artists. And, as a relatively new medium, words have not yet been invented to describe what's happening. Using the word "painting" in my description has gotten me into trouble with art fairs in the past. A couple of years ago DesMoines insisted that I enter, not in the digital category, but in the painting category. They insisted that my pictures are paintings, whether created digitally or not. I consider myself a printmaker and I wasn't allowed to sell limited edition prints of my "digital paintings" in DesMoines. After a flurry of emails back and forth, I was eventually disqualified. It was a lesson to me how difficult it is for me to describe my work and to differentiate it from the work of other digital artists.
Whether you agree or not, I do paint my pictures. Photographs play a part, like they do with many traditional painters. I differentiate my paintings from traditional paintings by calling them "digital" paintings. I'm not sure how that can be seen as "tricking" the jury. What else can I call it? I also describe on my applications that I use my finished "digital" paintings as printing plates for producing limited edition prints. So, I'm a printmaker.
Most digital artists manipulate photographs into interesting and meaningful compositions. I admire the work that many digital artists do using photographs. The finished composition of these digital artists has a photographic look. I use many of the same Photoshop techniques to create my compositions, but I like to depart from the hard-edged photographic look. So, I go a step further and "paint" the picture using a painting program... a digital painting program. And I call the finished picture a "digital" painting. Can't understand how you could call that "deception". Its all there, completely transparent.
Anyway, this conversation got into a totally new topic. My original question was whether cropped sections of my pictures used for jury purposes would be kosher or not. All I'm trying to do is fill up the 1920x1920 space with more image so that it has more impact with the jury.
John, considering what you've just said you prefer, if I were a juror and your work came up, I'd look at your category, your artwork, and then your description. If you are entering in the "Digital" category, I'm not going to think your works are paintings no matter how many "brushstrokes" I see in the images.
If I got the feeling you were trying to trick me into thinking that digital art is a painting, I might be inclined to reject your application. Even stating that they might be "digital paintings" can be perceived as an intent to deceive. Paintings are done with paint that gets directly transferred to a substrate. If you are a digital artist, your process involves creating a digital file from which you make a print. That's a very different process altogether.
When a painter makes a mark on the substrate, the mark can be seen and it can't be taken away. It must be covered up or reworked in some way. When a digital artist makes a mark in the software program, if he doesn't like the effect, he simply hits the edit and undo buttons and it all disappears. That's digital art.
Manipulating and layering photographs in Photoshop doesn't mean that person is a digital artist. That person is a photographer who manipulates photographs with computer software.
Seems like there is usually a place on applications where you can explain exactly what you do. I think it's fairly apparent in your images that you do that, but maybe a small square painting or two for the sake of showing off the brushwork detail would cover you here.
Thanks, Brenda. I guess I prefer it if a juror can see the pictures as paintings, not photos. That's why its important to get in close to see actual brushwork. there are other digital artists that work exclusively in Photoshop by manipulating and layering photographs. There's nothing wrong with that. I do some of that too, but I take it a step further by painting the pictures using palette knives and paintbrushes.
John, I think I'm a quite serious worrier, and I think you've out-worried even me, here. Maybe if you create a couple pieces that are sized with Zapp formatting in mind, upload those every time you're jurying with your Urban Punk pieces, but then also include a few long vertical and horizontals at full scale. It really is not difficult even viewing those as thumbnails on the computer to see that there's a lot of fascinating detail in those works. The juries can see it well enough to tell what you're doing and make their snap decision, I'm sure. (And by the way, I love your Urban Punk series! Brilliant! And makes me laugh.)
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