Yesterday, an old acquaintance of mine visited the library computer room. I prevailed on her to chat and draw with me at my Groupboard (linked in left sidebar here), a digital online whiteboard where up to five users can draw in a shared onscreen space about the size of a 3" X 5" file card. One of the prime-the-artist-pump features of this Java applet is the ability to save an image, then draw over it repeatedly, like a graffiti artist. My friend came up with the title Art Is Not Immortal, and I used it for the series.


In the first image (shown above), I was demonstrating the applet to my friend, and figured that circles/ellipses were the way to go for a quick tutorial. There is an Oval tool which makes this possible, though one cannot make a perfect circle. Then the Flood Fill comes into play, filling the shape with color with one click.


In the second image (above), I showed how to use the Freeform drawing tool, and my friend got into the act, scribbling WOW in bright pink, and making a bright blue curly line meander through the mazy pathways of the shapes. She then needed to do her own Web research, and signed off from the chat, but I had the bit in my teeth and was well started on a series.


One of my favorite methods in such series is to use the Freeform tool at a wide setting, and roughly block out larger shapes, leaving the scribbled color to show through. I did this with the third image (above) and the fourth (below).


I particularly liked the fourth image (above). It seemed to ask for a large rendering, i.e. a painting perhaps 3' X 5' instead of 3" X 5"!


Transverse shapes asserted themselves in the fifth image (above), and some color differentiation as in a background and foreground. Something industrial/mechanical in the appearance.


Another nice thing about digital artmaking, even with the simplest tools such as this free version of the Groupboard or an Accessory program like MS Paint, is the ease of "painting over" with white. Tough to get that opaque a white in watercolors or even acrylics, especially with such thin lines as in the sixth image (above).

Tomorrow, I will display the four pieces which emerged from Art Is Immortal VI after a session with Paint and PowerPoint.

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