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RenO states, “I’m a bit behind the curve here with these new ways of image making.  It’s been around now for awhile but I just didn’t encounter it because a strong need to draw routinely with paper and pencil.  At the time of acquiring a tablet and stylus, new programs for AI generative art were already becoming readily available, but what I’m doing is not AI.” 

 

There’s a big difference in this work and AI.  The art in the exhibit all starts from a hand drawn sketch, be it done with either a pencil or stylus initially, so the action is still the same.  The drawings or images ultimately are still rendered by hand.  They are not generated by a program.  The way they are stored is essentially the same but initial creation still comes directly from the artist. 

 

Interestingly, the output of the stylus can be changed in a wide array of sizes or formats.  The artist has a choice to make his/her line more clean or maybe more loose for example.  RenO states, “that’s exciting because you can cater to an effect or aesthetic that vibes with one’s emotional mood at the time just as one would chose the softness of graphite in a pencil to render subtleties of line or shading”.   Another point is that working in a digital space allows for more creative time and for less mundane actions like pencil sharpening or erasing.  This ultimately helps with the artists’ expression or flow in some regards.  Less time fussing and more time rendering new possibilities.  

 

The exhibit strongly supports the advent of technology in today’s age.   A portable tablet to go anywhere and create, of course, as long as there’s power available.   Small drawings can be made digital in a matter of a click of a button on the tablet’s camera and then quickly imported and prepped for coloring or “painting”.  Like renaissance oil paintings, digital layering exists too where each layer can be adjusted for brightness, color, or opacity for instance.  RenO states he once lost a finger nail from an old tube of moldy oil paint after mixing and contaminated his nail bed.  With digital art, dangers and toxicities vanish.  There are less consumables like water, paper, or thinners, and the best part is you never have to clean your brushes!  Of course, the end result is not a painting with the unique valleys and crevices of layered paint that most come to adore, but the importance of that is subjective.