ART BY SIMANTEL
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Computer Art

American "To keep one's art young, one must imitate young animals. What do they do? They play. A love of play -- serious, creative play -- is fundamental to the art of Brancusi, Miro and Calder." - Calder's Universe

Read a thought-provoking article about keeping your creativity alive, in Communication Arts magazine.

Windows Paint

Look what you can do with an overlooked, simple computer application Microsoft installs with Windows systems. American was pixel-painted in Windows Paint, an example of what you can do with the most humble of computer tools.

(By the way, if you don't already know this, the best way to learn any new application--in my opinion-- is to first fiddle around with the tools and doodads. See what they do on your own. Then read the weary manual to fill in the brain blanks.)

Here's some more paintings I did in Paint:

Inspired by this pixel sketch , I later painted Big River using a palette knife and oil paint.

My wife, Char, drew this imaginary pueblo village . I added color in Windows Paint.

More creations from Paintbrush: a lion, a snowscape at night, an abstract geometric painting, and another one. Two more: a dreaming woman, and the same thing with a Photoshop filter applied.

See all the colorful patterns in Proud Mary ? How did I do that? Shift+drag, which doesn't mean cruising Main Street with your four-on-the-floor.

Do this: In Paint, use the paintbrush tool to put some button-sized daubs of various colors on a fresh sheet of electronic paper. Now use one of the selection tools at the top of the tool box to surround the color daubs.

Here comes the fun and easy part: press the shift key and drag those little colors hither and yon. Go slow...then speed up. You should see some very colorful patterns fill your page.

If nothing happened, you probably accidentally deselected the paint daubs before pressing the shift key.

How did I make Proud Mary, the horse?

First off, after filling the whole page with the pattern, I drew a white outline with the eraser tool to carve out the image; it helps if you can draw. Middle off, I erased everything outside Proud Mary's body. Last off, each leg was selected, copied, and pasted a few times to give the impression of movement.

Here's a series of fast loading images which show this same method. The finished painting is called The Thoughtful Warrior. Click on each of the following images to follow the growth of the painting.

Step one. Step two. Step three. Step four. Step five. Step six. Step seven. Step eight. Step nine.

Here's a few more Paint-ings: a strange little doggery dog ; a cult leader ; and a dinocorn from my imagination.

Please make a note of it: You don't have to draw perfectly to make a work of electronic art. And remember the three P's: Practice, Persistence, and Play!

View another artist's colorful creations in Windows Paint: James, from Scotland.

Photoshop Creations

Trout was painted entirely in Photoshop. A simple pencil sketch was scanned, then painted with various tools and filters in Photoshop.

Here's another trout that looks less realistic.

GIF animation Using Photoshop's layers option, I varied the look of a horse , and created a simple GIF animation. The images end after 3 loops. If you want to play it again, hit your Reload button. The horse was drawn with brush and ink, scanned, and filter effects applied on duplicate layers. After exporting via GIF 89a, the images were dropped into Gifbuilder.

What happens when you cross your cat with your spouse ? Photoshop 4.0 has some magic tricks up its sleeve, like paste into.

I used the smudge tool in Photoshop to draw detailed, muscular anatomy: an arm; a foot; and a woman's head.

A simple painting of a canyon was also created using the smudge tool, pulling color this way and that.

Using a scan of leaves and drawing with the mouse, I painted a symbolic illustration of personal growth.

All art work Copyright © Harlan Simantel
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