{"id":126,"date":"2002-12-05T23:54:49","date_gmt":"2002-12-06T07:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=126"},"modified":"2006-12-27T10:03:04","modified_gmt":"2006-12-27T18:03:04","slug":"the-artful-codgers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/?p=126","title":{"rendered":"The Artful Codgers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Elven<\/a>Note the image on the left. I painted this in Photoshop almost two years ago, and I will readily admit that I used a photo of Audrey Hepburn as a reference. The photo was black and white, though, and Audrey obviously didn’t have elven ears [unless you know different], so I don’t really feel as though I’ve literally copied anything. BUT…<\/p>\n

Deep down inside, I feel as though I somehow cheated.<\/p>\n

Now, I used to frequent art forums online, and in every single one of them, the topic of “What’s Art?” would come up. [And never you mind about it, as I’m not looking for a debate; I’m just saying that it’s what wannabes like me tended to do in such forums.] In any case, there would be some die-hard lovers of the arts who would claim that 3D art wasn’t art because a computer was involved, blah, blah, and that real art was all about using real paints, etc., etc. Then there would be those who would claim that art was all about passion, emotion and the act of creating from the heart and soul and all ten toes, no matter how godawful the so-called artwork really was.<\/p>\n

Okay. That said, I’ll admit that I’m of the camp that believes art requires skill, whatever the medium and whatever the purpose, be it digital or traditional—and to hell with all that crap about feeling or creating messages that move and uplift society. If feeling is involved, fine. If the artwork has a message, fine. But damn it, it had better look like it took some semblance of skill to make it, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart and soul and all ten toes.<\/p>\n

Then on Sunday, I saw something on 60 Minutes<\/a> that totally rocked my world. Apparently, the old art masters—da Vinci, Caravaggio, Van Eyck, and the like, most especially those who are very well known for their realism—knew about photographic devices, used them, and traced<\/i> their work. Traced!<\/i><\/p>\n

Anyway, even though there was a die-hard art historian on the show that dismissed the whole theory as hogwash, the evidence<\/a> was pretty convincing—so much that I looked the book<\/a> up and stuck it on my wish list<\/a> to bookmark it for later. It really did rock my world.<\/p>\n

Then I thought about it, and I thought about it some more.<\/p>\n

Even if the old masters did trace their work, it still took a lot of skill to bring the traced work to life—choosing the colors and blending them to match the photographic image on the canvas. Then, of course, there are the sculptors, who certainly didn’t have CAD back then [again, unless you know different]. So they’re all still pretty whiz-bang artists.<\/p>\n

Just the same… knowing how the old masters might have pulled off making their masterpieces, I feel a little bit better about having used a reference photo for the image mentioned above. Of course, if anyone finds the original photos that I used as a reference for Alien Barbecue<\/a>, I am in really, really big trouble.<\/p>\nShare this post:

\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"tumblr\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"tumblr\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note the image on the left. I painted this in Photoshop almost two years ago, and I will readily admit that I used a photo of Audrey Hepburn as a reference. The photo was black and white, though, and Audrey obviously didn’t have elven ears [unless you know different], so I don’t really feel as though I’ve literally copied anything. BUT… Deep down inside, I feel as though I somehow cheated. Now, I used to frequent art forums online, and…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}