Digital Art

I first became aware of computers in the 80's. Frankly I was leery of them and was sure they we're going to take over the world and enslave us all (Er. I guess this is a legitimate fear given humanity's adoration of the smartphone. present company included). I wanted nothing to do with them

Hoquea                                                              M Francis McCarthy

Fast forward to 94. I see comics colored in glorious ways that I'd not imagined possible and on the film screens a new type of art was making it's presence felt. I've always followed my deepest intuitions and they we're leading me into this realm of color. At the time I made not a lot of money though I worked hard at the job I'd had for 9 years or so. My mother provided my door into computer land by secretly loaning me the money for my first computer (my dad never knew she did this).

Pokp                                                                    M Francis McCarthy

It was an AT&T 486 with a 500 mb hard drive and most excitingly a CD drive! Not a CD burner that was only an expensive and vague dream at that time. It took me awhile to wrap my head around the thing, this was 1994. I've no space here to delineate my complete progression of learning program by program but I started out with the CorelDraw 3 Suite and then progressed to Painter 3 finally I was able to get my hands on Photoshop.

Broken                                                                    M Francis McCarthy

My big goal at first was to color my pen and ink work and I did do a far bit of that but eventually I started getting really abstract with my art. The freedom of the virtual art studio was intoxicating and I ran wild in it. Creating whatever struck my fancy. I used to love starting with only a blank white file and using only noise I'd create a digital work of art filter by filter, manipulation by manipulation.

Nu                                                           M Francis McCarthy

These images I've posted today are just a small sampling of this exploratory period that lasted from 1994 to 1998. In 1998 I started working as a graphic artist and illustrator and was on a computer all day long working! How I got to landscape painter from there is one of the tales I plan to tell on this blog and I've more to share...