Digital Art 3

Since we we're discussing abstracts yesterday. I thought I'd throw up a few tonight and chat a bit about them and that era in my art adventure.

Lodgio by M Francis McCarthy

These images date from 1996. All of them we're created using my first PC, a 486 with 8 mb of ram. Actually in 1996 my friend David lent me 400 dollars to help me upgrade my machine to a 1 gig hard dive and 16 mb of ram. I owe David a lot and will always remember his kindness.

At the time, that ram upgrade was 300 dollars or so. In those days multitasking like we do now was limited. I was able to play a CD while working in my art programs though which was miraculous at the time.

Kope by M Francis McCarthy

I know, It's a bit of a cliche now but at the time power was a big factor in what you could accomplish on a computer.

We spoke a bit about my digital technique in my last digital art post but the truth is most of this work is not repeatable. When creating abstract art digitally I followed the path of pure inspiration. Though I had some formulas that I would use consistently, the array of options available at every turn meant that no two pieces we're ever the same. 

Muin by M Francis McCarthy

I always strove for organic expression in my digital abstracts. I wanted to develop each image in a natural way even though I was using unnatural means. I seldom would actually draw or paint them in a direct manner, preferring to manipulate digital media in more oblique ways. 

I used all the distortion and blur filters combined with Kai's power tools like vortex distort. However, I do not like anything canned looking and seldom would I leave anything but a faint trace of a filter used. I've more digital pieces that have never been aired and I'm sure we'll revisit this topic in a future post.