Digital meets Traditional- Painting 2

When I arrived to teach painting at Auburn, I quickly realized that traditional underpainting and realist techniques in oil were outside the focus of the other painting professor's curriculum. I combined my digital art and painting background to create projects that introduce students to the power of combining traditional painting with the most current technological tools to create contemporary images. Collages are created in Photoshop. I teach fundamental cutting and pasting skills and work with students to arrange objects dynamically. While moving the objects around, they reaffirm these basic digital program skills. These collages aim to place at least six 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 underpainting or "dead painting skills." The underpaintings should resemble sepia drawings, replicating the digital file. Next, I worked with the students to color the works. Starting with transparent or thin colors, we work towards opaque colors 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 integral for students in Painting 2 classes.