It started with the cartoons.

Not being familiar with digital art creation, I took the safe route and sketched out the cartoons on paper then photographed them and then used the digital tools to colorize them. It was akin to a light aquatint.

By and by I learned how to control the weight of the lines, then the opacity of the colors, and how to make corrections. One day  I shed the paper entirely to see if I could do a cartoon from start to finish on the computer tablet.

Now, the cartoons nearly always live first on the screen and last on paper.

I also use the computer to work out compositional kinks. In the case of this concept, I’d had no success doing the picture conventionally so it was a nothing-to-lose proposition.

Starting with the stage, or what I call the symphony part of the art which is the background environment, I started working with photoshop CS6 to firm up the details.

The painted part of the composition

To begin digitally, I added a bit of wood because the platform of twigs was simply a base upon which to build.

Plywood base makes more sense than a bunch of sticks lashed together like a raft.

Next I drew in the subject. Through trial and error, lots of add and move and delete and add again

Continual revisions on the girl, and now the tedium of adding the needles to the evergreen tree as I continue.

Computer art is not easier, necessarily. It certainly is easier with some processes. But it absolutely is no less work. It’s just another way of saying what you want the art to say. Digital is a different language and I very much like it!