It’s hard to believe that my first “official” digital mixed media abstract artwork was released almost ten years ago. I had dabbled in it before that point, but it was really more of a curiosity than anything. Why I chose that moment is because of two things.
My son was born two months prior, and we were still in the “every 3 hour” feeding phase. I spent many late nights creating digital artwork in lieu of sleep. I had massive sleep deprivation and that probably fueled the abstract nature of the art because I was on auto pilot for most of it and not thinking about what I was doing.
The second thing that happened around this time was I joined an online virtual reality community called Second Life. At that point it was still very new and had LOTS of opportunities for artists to import their work into the SL world and show it off and sell it virtually to other people…with real money I may add. I had a studio where my work was displayed, and it was a fantastic time to be a virtual artist.
 One of Todd’s Second Life Studios |
So what started in a severely sleep deprived state ended up making me some money in a virtual world selling virtual art to virtual people, so I have that going for me. Thinking on it more, however, I probably made more money selling virtual images of my art than actual real life prints of the same thing, so, that makes me sad.
Back to the piece at hand… “Hands Of Decision” |
Reflecting back on this piece, it looks incredibly amateurish compared to some of my more recent abstract digital pieces some ten years later. At least it’s shown how far I’ve come since first starting to dabble in this electronic medium.
My process for creating this type of art is using many layers comprised mainly of my photography, and manipulating them with various effects in Photoshop till it becomes something. With this process I get to use a lot of the reject photos that don’t stand on their own and manipulate them to the point where you can’t tell what they are, then add them to other similar photos and eventually a picture emerges using various filters.
This one is pretty basic. The main photograph was a statue that I photographed at the St. Louis Art Museum. I then added various metal textures and a few other secret sauce things, then manipulated it to what you see now. Eventually this became one of three in my “hands” series, the other two being “Hands Of Burden” and “Hand Of Redemption.” Haven’t seen them yet? Visit my GALLERY to view them and others!
Thanks for reading!