Moving Outside the Box

Much like Renee previously wrote about in her blog entry, I too, spent a long time painting in oils. I discovered oils in my last year of college and fell in love with their rich, buttery color and texture. By the way, if you're looking for the most scrumptious (figuratively, NOT literally of course) oil paints ever, I suggest you go and pick up some tubes of M. Graham walnut-based oils...the best!

But then...along came my first child in 2006, and given my tendency towards being a messy painter, I decided that having toxic paints around small children was probably not a good move. So, I went completely digital.

For the past seven years, my art has been completely created using Photoshop. And while there are definitely benefits of going totally digital, I've reached the point that I am feeling completely "boxed" in by creating on my Wacom--essentially a 12" square of plastic. So, out have come the pencils, pens, brushes and...PAINTS! 

It's been wonderful to get back into creating art the old fashioned way: there's no Command-Z to rely on anymore!  For me, no "undo" button means happy accidents, which I hope will lead to an energy in my art that I feel gets watered down when I paint with Photoshop. Eventually, I would like to figure out a successful way to merge both digital with traditional methods to create illustrations that match my style.

I can't wait to rediscover art in the traditional sense and share my discoveries here with you all! I'm looking forward to getting my fingers dirty and simply...messing about!

Toodles!

~christina