Digital meets Traditional

Arriving to teach painting at Auburn, I quickly realized traditional under painting and realist techniques in oil were not a focus in the other paitning professors curriculum. I combined my background in digital art and painting to create projects that introduce students to the power of combining traditional paining with the most current technological tools for the creation of contemporary images. Collages are created in Photoshop. I teach very basic cutting and pasting skills and work with students to arrange the objects in dynamic ways. In the process of moving the objects around they reaffirm these basic digital program skills. The goal of these collages is to place at least 6 different textures, or surfaces into the picture. The best projects do this while also considering a theme. Students often complain that they don't think they can paint that many different textures. Once the collages are finished and I affirm that we will tackle the rendering problems together, I teach them under painting or "dead painting skills". The under paintings should look like sepia drawings, exactly replicating the digital file. Next I work with the students to color the works. Starting with transparent or thin colors we work towards opaque color to build up the final surface. The last step is to finish the painting with a few strategically placed transparent glazes to amplify the realistic details. 

This project is designed for students in Painting 2 classes.