It has been one of those up and down days. The art class didn’t go too well – we all have those kind of days which left me feeling some what dejected. On the other hand the digital painting of Claire Underwood from House of Cards is coming on really well. This leads me back to a recurring theme – just how valid is the work I’m creating using the computer?

It is clear that many painters just don’t get it and dismiss it as ‘illustration’ as if this was a bad thing. They seem to have forgotten that many, if not all, of the great artists before the 20th century could be described as creating ‘illustrations’. I’m not claiming to have any vision or be the best at what I do it is just that I find great fulfilment in the work I’m doing.

It could also be described as ‘painting by numbers’ in that you work from a photograph and it is oh so easy match the RGB value for the pixels and before you know it you have made an exact copy of what you are using as your source material. Perhaps I might have been, to an extent, guilty of this at the start but I to believe that I have moved away from this so that the image is now all my creation, apart from the fact I’m painting a face and there is only so much you can do to this before you loose the likeness. I think what I do is valid and is an art form even if others don’t.

Simon Marchini
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk