hamid@lims01.lerc.nasa.gov (HAMID SAMADANI) (12/11/90)
I saw an exhibit a the torpedo factory (for those local to Washington, DC area) called Pixels to Paint. This one artist was using a Mac IIsi, a paint program called Oasis and a Wacomp tablet and pen to create very painterly computer images. Two points and one question: 1 - He said that he liked the pen much better than using a mouse. It freed his hand movements and nicely simulates the real world activity of drawing/painting; also the tablet/pen detected varying sensitivity of line. 2 - The paintings he had done (couple of self and other portraits) all had a pastel look to them. Question - I asked him about the pastel quality: why did the images look as if they were painted with pastel pens and what if you wanted to achieve a different color quality? His response was a rather flat, "I don't know. They do have a pastel quality to them and that's all I have to say about it." My guess is that the pastel quality is achieved because the strokes of color when applied to the image are opaque, that is a single brush of color hides what may be underneath, like a thick pastel pen stroke. With watercolor or oil paints the translucent quality of the mixed color adds an additional element to the image. It may be possible to change this visual effect by painting the image at a greater level of detail: closer to the pixel, sorta like Seurat's pointillism technique? Hamid
brianj@witsend.cs.umd.edu (Brian Johnson) (12/17/90)
In article <1990Dec10.202314.14109@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> hamid@lims01.lerc.nasa.gov (HAMID SAMADANI) writes:
Question - I asked him about the pastel quality: why did the
images look as if they were painted with pastel pens
and what if you wanted to achieve a different color quality?
His response was a rather flat, "I don't know. They do
have a pastel quality to them and that's all I have to say
about it."
My guess is that the pastel quality is achieved because the strokes
of color when applied to the image are opaque, that is a single
brush of color hides what may be underneath, like a thick pastel
pen stroke. With watercolor or oil paints the translucent quality
of the mixed color adds an additional element to the image.
It may be possible to change this visual effect by painting the
image at a greater level of detail: closer to the pixel, sorta like
Seurat's pointillism technique?
Hamid
The paint programs control the intensity of the colors, when video
tape mode is selected the most vibrant values are "washed out" so as
not to overload our crummy TV's I guess. He can get pure, vibrant
colors (limited only by the monitor) if he wants.
The Torpedo Factory is in Alexandria, VA (Wash. D.C.) and the artists
name is Larry Ravitz. I have his address and phone number if anyone
wants to know.
I've watched him work and it is very interesting. He's intense and
has a burning desire to create significant art with the computer -
he's only had a computer for one year (Mac IIfx with Wacom tablet).
The Wacom tablet gives him x,y,z inputs. What the z coordinate
enables (pressure on the tablet) is completely software dependent and
allows quite astonishing software creations. This third input
parameter has only sixteen values but allows him to control brush
width (like a real brush), paint density (thickness sort-of), and /or
a couple of other things.
The high-end paint programs and extra degree of input freedom allow an
artist to CREATE (not simply photo-manipulate) wonderful things. As
well as saving versions of a painting, animation, undo, immediate
paint "drying", etc...
This with only 16 z inputs and some supporting software. What else
can we do? These tablets are $400-900 (depending on size). With
mass-production and a few years this capability could be very cheap.
I can imagine that many applications (especially visualization) could
use of a third input variable. Lets push input parameters out one
step at a time. This is an easy step:-)
--
Brian Johnson Computer Science Department
brianj@cs.umd.edu University of Maryland
(301) 405-2725 College Park, Md 20742