Great New Artists

January has been a successful month so far here so I thought I would do a little time-out housekeeping-type post for all my lovely readers.

So far 2009 has seen a lot of new artists from YouTube and other sites on the internet but I thought it would be in keeping with my more academic nature if February took a slightly different track. I feel it is neccessary to understand old art in order to truly appreciate new art so the month of Feb will be dedicated to some of those old favorites with short descriptions of why they were so great.

Hopefully the rest of 2009 will get back to my roots here at Great New Artists and find some more great painters &ct. making great new art for everyone. Since the summer is usually pretty heavy with this kind of thing floating around we’ll keep our eyes peeled for that around that time.

In keeping with the tradition of counting down and looking back which seems to transcend generations and religions every year round about this time I decided to write about some of the best new artists I found this past year.

Valsartdiary I actually found out about her a while ago before 2008 started but her style is classic.

Katarina Sokolova one of the best digital painters I have ever seen.

Kawaii Goods.com great little shop full of pink stuff.

Graffiti Paris is a book not a person or organization but it still counts as one of the best art related things I found this year.

Of course there have been a lot more great things this year than just these but it’ll be more fun if I don’t tell you what else to like

After the recent holiday blowouts that left many of us with no money for charitable giving in the first part of the new year I thought it would be nice to write about a charity that takes nothing but a little time and talent (ok it may be a little more than that).

Operation Photo Rescue is a charity run by a network of volunteers who give their time and talents to restore old photos and documents that have been ravaged by flooding and other disasters around the US in the past years.

I got involved with this charity through NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) shortly after becoming a member in September of 2008 (what a difference a day makes!).

Volunteers typically do two photos a week but they do choose which photos they do which means that it not only helps the people receiving the finished product but also can be a great boon to developing your talents in photo restoration. They always have thousands of photos and need volunteers so check them out.

Happy New Year everybody!

The NoHo Scene Festival is happening on October 5^th this year from 11am until 5pm featuring art, music, theatre, dance, acting, art workshops and screenings. I’m assuming this happens in LA or Hollywood or somewhere else I can’t get to by then. You have to wonder about their slogan though, if it really is more fun than you can fit in a day why don’t they make it longer?

The artists village part of the festival will feature exhibits by Danz Art & Deb Ash, Vera Arutyunyan, Thom Bierdz, Ralph Berko, D.V.L. Productions, Fine Art Fire, Felicite Imam’s Fine Art Prints & Cards, Ruggiero Photography and many more

Finally I have come full circle with this blog and have returned to the reason I started it: To showcase great new digital artists. This time it is Lithuanian born Natalie Shau. Not only is she the same age as me (23) but she uses Photoshop which as strange as it may sound is a rarity in digital painting these days.

She uses a variety of techniques in her work including photo manipulation, digital painting and integration of 3D elements. Her work has been compared to Tim Burton by some but since I like to compare everything to his stuff I’ll just say it’s a little dark. I love her fairy tale series but I won’t hate anyone who counts anything else as a favorite because it’s all brilliant.

OK so obviously I’m being a little tongue in cheek with that title but I do think I’m pretty great. I thought since I am an artist why deprive myself of a little profile action in my own blog?

So where to begin? Well let’s start with why I like art: I have been studying art for as long as I can remember because I grew up with parents who were artists. Both my parents have music degrees and were music teachers before I was born. My mother was also a brilliant (well, is) painter in traditional media like acrylics and pastels. So I have had quite the number of years of training for someone my age. I started proper art school studying Visual Communications in 2005 (I will finish in Dec. 2008) which everyone assumes has something to do with sign language (it’s mostly graphic design).

I started studying acting in high school and have performed on stage in plays and concerts including last Christmas when I was in the choir at one of the Point of Grace Winter Wonderland shows in Greensboro, NC.

I have since focused my attention on being a freelance graphic designer full time including running my own online fashion design gallery Future Tense Fashion My homepage Future Tense features the fashion shop and an artist resources page which is always being updated with new links as well as the RSS feed of my other blog at Wordpress.com.

For now I am seeing where my art takes me and plan to start making and selling brushes and textures for Photoshop artists as well as adding a portfolio to my online website network. I also plan to travel to China next year with my church before studying for a Master’s Degree.

Great New Artists is looking for new artists from all genres to participate in this blog. You can be an artist from any discipline including film (even actors), music, visual arts, writing or anything else you can think of to be profile subjects. Whether you have had your big break or no one has seen your art outside of your hamster’s cage we want to see your work.

Great New Artists is a blog which desires to showcase the new and exciting works of the contemporary art scene all over the world. I know you guys are doing some amazing work out there that no one has thought of before so show it off!

Just contact me, Whitney at missfishdesigns@yahoo.com or on MySpace or on The Outer Post just make sure you send a small sample of your work (this can be an attachment or a website address in the message) and include Great New Artists in the subject line.

I can’t wait to hear from you all!

XOXOXO

This one is for all the digital artists out there who have been killing themselves trying to find good high quality Photoshop brushes that can be used for a variety of paintings. These are the best ones I have found a little about the people who made them.

Marta Dahlig: There is also a post on this blog about her. These are some of the best brushes I have an there is no limit to how you can use them. I have used the fabric brushes to create realistic fabric textures but also as erasers to create unusual effects and torn edges. These are invaluable for realistic effects in paintings.

Brusheezy: You will want to bookmark this one. This is the largest collection of high quality usable brushes for Photoshop I have found. They are all worth getting and using. Most sites seem to have no scruples when it comes to posting things for download but this one clearly has set parameters on what is good and what is a waste of time.

MyPhotoshopBrushes.com: Ditto for this site but in a totally unique way. You have to see this one.

My Philosophy on Brushes

As an artist I have a philosophy on Photoshop brushes. No brush or tool can replace talent whether traditionally or digitally but you have to have tools to use and learn and grow from as an artist even if you work in traditional media. I like to use brushes primarily for experimentation and realism. At first it didn’t seem like they would help much with that but the realy high quality ones definitely do and not only that but I have learned how to make my own brushes better just by using a variety of brushes others have made.

Happy exploring!

XOXOXO 

Well here it is the second day of the new blog and I’m already deviating. But I thought this was worth mentioning because it is only through new art forms that we can reinvent ourselves.

If you saw the opening ceremony of the Olympics this year you saw the amazing things we can do with light particularly by way of LED screens but this capacity for illusion does not stop at our shores. Starting August 13 the Gnomon gallery in LA will show an exhibit called Rabbitholes showcasing hologram art. The pieces will feature up to 7 seconds of fluid 3D animation on completely flat surfaces.

I have checked out the Gnomon gallery site and this artwork looks amazing. They are featuring the work of 10 renowned artists including Alex Alvarez, Meats Meier, Taron, Scott Spencer and Aaron Sims who is one of dozens of extremely talented digital artists who worked on the newest installment of the Mummy franchise.

But do not despair if you cannot get to LA in time to see the exhibit you can watch the animations on their website. One in particular caught my eye Head of a Woman by Jeremy Engelman because it looks like a portrait of my mother when she was 33. The animation is very good even if it is not flashy or spectacular because it is subtle and you know when you see it that this is what this artist specializes in.

Watching each animation is a little strange. The pieces are so distinctive and beautiful in their own ways but they are all displayed exactly the same way in a frame in a smaller window surrounded by a graphic that looks like old wood. I get the concept that it is supposed to be a window but wouldn’t a rabbit hole be more appropriate?

If you’re looking for flashy animation at the exhibit check out Meats Meier’s Animation Mother. This is amazing and colorful and reminded me of a friendly version of a portrait of Medusa.

There are some great examples all around of character portraits and animation and I highly recommend at least a visit to the website before it’s gone.

This artist is for the more gothically inclined–but I still love her! The first thing to notice about her is that she is brilliant both in the realism and use of color in her work. A small sampling of her work shows her great range of subject matter which includes not only the very dark gothic but also the surreal and the beautiful. Her seven deadly sins: Vanity is one of the best uses of that subject I have seen. If you’ve been following this series so far it is clear that I admire anyone who can paint realistic portraits from imagination and this one is no different. She has inspired me to try and do a little more realistic portrait painting or at least learn all I can about it and to try and find my style and little more concretely.

Her workshops on Imagine FX are all great and she has made a ton of great brushes for Photoshop that you can download from that site for free. It’s always great to find another Photoshop painter apparently this is something that is more rare than I thought in the world of digital painting.

Find Marta Dahlig online:

Deviant Art

Imagine FX Interview

Imagine FX Search: Marta Dahlig