Here's my first stab at an actual "Digital Painting". I put that word in quotes because I feel there's a hazy line these days between physical and digital paintings. The thought process is very similar and each medium has it's advantages and disadvantages. I'm interested in the digital side for it's speed and the physical side for it's tactile quality. Digital is a great way for me to work on ideas and to sketch things out in a less permanent arena. I view it as another way to learn and to build a solid understanding of image making in general……..I enjoy diversity and I exercise it at will.

The next time I do a "Digital Painting" I'll put together a short tutorial with progress shots on how I created it.

Here's a couple of observations on what I learned while doing this:

> When you have a very dimly lit situation, like the left knee of this figure, the highlights can be very dark colors and still appear as fairly bright lights. I was surprised at how dark that color looked when I chose it on the palette but how light it looked when I painted it onto the dark figure.

> I was also reminded of the immense power that simplicity has. Simple, strong compositions always work well. This image took about an hour to create in Photoshop using a Wacom Tablet and was done 100% from the imagination….You can call it speed painting, sketching with paint, digital painting, or illustration……. they all seem to fit somehow. I like to refer to it as a worthy exercise, a good use of an hour, and a way to learn a little bit more about creating art. Try it out sometime if you get a chance and let me know how it goes………………