I like it, I think its great.

Wayne

I see that you are a very fine portrait photographer, and that is your primary medium. I wonder if you would tell us what kind of fine art training you've had.? Thanks

 My first paying job at 15 was working for a photographer. Many many years ago. At the time the photographer would drymount a studio portrait on cardboard, and the "colorist" would apply transparent photo oils like Marshalls, and then lots of clear textured brushwork with Wingel or the like. The customer knew what he was getting, and the price was right.  Now with commercial inkjet printers the size of a small bedroom, pigment ink, and the ability to have only one image printed in almost any size, the dynamics have changed. 

 I think your portraits are wonderfully lovely. And the artists in this forum seem to agree.    However, I think you ought to make it clear to all of the artists here that your photographs are manipulated in Photoshop and/or Painter, (which you've been open about) but I don't think they're projected. I think that you have them  digitally printed on canvas at a lab.  Maybe stretched as well. Then you add transparent oils. Technically the procedure is called "enhanced" photography. Unfortunately for those who enjoy the process, the resultant "paintings" are not accepted by galleries, museums, or juried shows.   

My concern here is for so many aspiring artists who so want to paint well and are totally discouraged by your expertise. If I'm way off base with everything or anything please please jump in.

I Think your painting is fantastic.  Sometimes we worry too much on how someone does something and not the finished product. 

In class it is amazing how with 12 students and a center model (if fruit or even a block of cheese) everyone paints different - I do not mean different angles - But their personallities are revealed with every stroke of the brush or sponge.  If you feel the painting and enjoy painting it in anyway (be it with fingers or brush) all the best to you.

I am a beginner and If I can one day produce anyting close to this I would be proud.

To Everyone:

I think several on here have been really unfair and rude to Carver...but we live in a time when it seems to be accuse first...apologize later...!!?

He said that he is just learning the painter program. He did not say he prints his photography on his canvases usually from what I can find in the discorse...

He said that as an (obviously brillient) engineer and artist he enjoys experimenting with the latest technology.

As for 'projecting' to start a painting...many famous artists have done this on large canvases just because of the sheer size and the inability sometimes to stand back far enough to see your composition. The people who say this is some kind of rule breaking  are the same people who think that Norman Rockwell was not a great artist...but that people who throw paint at a canvas are. And...

what else?..is it cheating to draw a grid in order to change the size of a piece you are looking at? Or to use a stick to rest your arm on?? To look at pictures at all??? Rediculous.

One of our sons is getting to take his first formal art classes, being self taught and...having drawn since childhood, and finding out he could squeeze in a minor in Art while at college. He was nervous before the first day...I could tell he was afraid he was going to go into classes with REAL artists, and be sort of 'found out'. So I told him don't worry...they're just like you...all in the same boat of... trying.

He told me last night that an art exibition went up...he sounded unimpressed..so I said "How was it?"... suspecting what he thought. And he said..."Lots of it was just awful...and left me thinking...boy, should I work hard and try to get good... or just be lazy and call it expressive, and experimental?" (Not that art can't be either of those things...just that it should not be an excuse for bad art.)

So...I think we all need to ask ourselves what motives we might have for assuming something that has not been said...and accusing others for any reason on a public forum. What ever techniques Carver experiments in...it is obvious that we are all the benificiaries of his graciousness in showing his art on this little forum.

Our daughter photoshops her own prom pictures...and calls colors by their digital name...as in..."I can't believe they painted that wall #000ff blue!" Without a doubt there is experimentation going on...but if you have a concern with anyone at any time...or a question to ask that impinges their integrity...it ought to be done privately, or not at all.

I hope Carver will not have felt offended...and keep sharing with us of his brillience.

River/michele

I have to agree with Bill:

Quote: "...but I do think that when on your web site, you call a portrait "Oil on Canvas", instead of "Oil Enhanced Photography" you run the risk of misleading a viewer who might not understand that you started with a digitally printed canvas and applied paint to it."

I was a little disappointed when I learned the art was mainly photographs that had matched colors painted over it.  I really thought these were beautiful oil paintings along the lines of some of the masters.  (Though, I do have to say I am now starting to recognize Corel Painter artists' work from other forums very quickly. There is a certain look about the Corel Painter that looks the same across the board.)  I do understand the Masters used grids and did some of their own projecting.  I actually use grids for my own work, once I have sketched it out, draw a grid over my sketch, and then redraw the grid on the canvas I want to use.

It does take talent to match colors to a photograph; however, I concur with Bill about the terminology to not mislead "Oil Enhanced Photography," or "Oil Enhanced Digital Photography."

I can see how this becomes a quandry, does this really belong under digital artwork, or does it belong under oil?  You are using both tools to produce beautiful pieces of work.

I seem to have offended some artists, some have misunderstood my motives, and some are not familiar with what can accomplished with technology.   All methods of enlarging an image have always been acceptable by other artists, not necessarily by the public and novices, who romanticize creativity. ( If you're interested in the subject, read Hockneys "Secret Knowledge", or Susan Sontags "Art and Photography")

DaVinci constructed what may have been the first Camera Obscura, Vermeers close friend was the inventor of the magnifying lens, Fredric Church traveled with a photographer. Did you really think he sat next to Niagra Falls and painted?  Magazine illustrators used "Lucies".  On and on.  I've tried the opaque projector, I sometimes use a grid, I'll do almost anything that works for me. But not because I have to.

As for the current discussion, I think its just a matter of Carver addressing artists in this forum. He needs to belong to the Digital group. He can still blow them away with his technique, because he spent years perfecting his portrait photography. He is far and away better than the Corel Painter Affiliate that he credits, Marilyn Sholin.

He meanders a little in other statements, but I quote his first statement under this painting :

"Yes I am learning painter, in fact, I am trying a new technique with it... by using painter and adding oils to it on canvas... I went to a seminar in San Antonio to hear an artisted named Marilyn Sholin who does this... "

On the 2/14 post Carver says..."I am trying this for the first time..."

I'll let him defend himself now...but I think lots of leaps to conclusions happened here.