M.C.Escher and Photoshop

    M.C.Escher is, by far, my favorite artist and did his work well before the age of computers. I strongly recommend you look at his art at mcescher.com. Why he was amazing is he would mathematically plan out things like tessellations or distortions to make impossible landscapes. I've seen this type of planning simplified by using a grid but with the lines distorted like a sphere is pushing them out. As an artist I can tell you this sort of thing is extremely difficult to do and make it look natural.

    The reason I mentioned computers is that programs can easily replicate his methods. I've seen tools that create tessellations and personally use a legal copy of photoshop. Photoshop has filters like "spherize" that automatically produce the distortions the name suggests. It's an amazing program.

    The issues that arise revolve around artistic integrity. Are you creating art or is the computer doing the work for you? Technology aids the ease of life but this can come across as a double edged sword. If you take a stock photo and add the colored pencil filter on photoshop, what work did you actually do? On the other hand, technology allows us to make artistic creations never before possible.  

    To quote Rush's "The Spirit of the Radio" song: "All this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted. Not so coldly charted it’s really just a question of your honesty." Which relates to a similar issue of musical integrity. It's really on us to make the call. 

    I've been guilty of using computers to aid art myself. Further down you'll see a painting I did but with a tablet over a photo. One could argue since I took the photo there's nothing wrong with using it this way but when I look at the paintings my grandfather carefully planned out by hand, it makes me feel bad. I didn't do much more than painting by numbers. (If it's too big to fit on your screen, right click and select "view image" to see the whole thing at once.)

    I hope you continue to read my blog to see my "honest" work as I have a lot to share.