Drawing is an art form that involves using instruments to create marks on a two-dimensional surface. Traditionally, artists used analog media such as pencils, charcoal or ink. But nowadays I use a pen display with graphical software.
I studied science: drawing fossils, creating maps, and programming a computer. Nowadays I use digital media to make art.
I bought a pocket computer with a plotter. My next computer was a Mac; it had a graphical interface and printer. Now I also enter spatial data with a stylus, creating images.
I employ layering, and each of my digital artworks is original. First I used the raster graphics software MyPaint. Since when, I have been using the vector graphics application Inkscape. I am a member of two art clubs.
Below I list artworks in reverse chronological order. My most recent is at the bottom of the page.
Raster graphics
A bitmap is an array of tiny pixels. Most Internet images are raster. This format is compatible, easy, compressible, detailed, and applicable. It's good for digital painting. But pixelation loses quality when scaled up. And high resolution file size can be large.
In a community centre art class, I drew this portrait of a fellow student. The subject was an amiable cook, who sat across a table from me.
Vector graphics
Vector images are made of mathematical shapes. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) uses shapes, paths, text, and styles. Vectors are scalable; they are visual elements. Geometric primitives are points, lines, paths, polygons, rectangles, ellipses, arcs, Bézier curves, and splines. Points, lines and curves are fundamental geometric objects. Joining line segments forms a polygon. Commands define a primitive, specify coordinates, and set additional properties. Vector graphics make clean illustrations. Simple graphics have small file size. This format is ideal for printing.
I entered the first two following artworks in an exhibition.
Above is my self portrait. I finished it on May 1, 2024.
In the southern hemisphere, June is winter. So my digital media group chose the theme 'frost'. On 6 June 2024, I completed the above artwork. The reference photo was from some Web site. I built up the image, layering tone and shapes.
Urban Sketchers Canberra visited the Canberra Museum & Gallery. My digital art gear needs electricity and shade. So I sat in the closed cafe, facing the bar. I finished the above artwork on 13 September, 2024.
My art club was preparing for an exhibition. So its digital media group set the theme 'Deadlines'. On 20 September 2024, I finished the above conceptual artwork.
My art group set the topic 'Exhibition/Exhibitionism'. So my above artwork is a nude. Its subject had been a local helper at the 2009 World Naked Bike Ride. Which event highlighted cyclists' vulnerability. I finished this artwork on 6 November, 2024.
On 12 January 2025, I participated in an Urban Sketchers Canberra field excursion. The locale was downtown, in a mall called Scott's Crossing. On 15 March 2025, I finished my above artwork. My artistic style looks like a collage of objects.
The above diagram shows how to connect a mouse to a smart TV. I completed it on 5 April 2025.
For the month of May, my digital media group had the theme 'May...'. Which I interpreted as "maybe". So by 10 May 2025, I depicted Schrödinger's cat, which is a paradox. My artwork is above.
My digital media group chose the theme 'lasting impressions', which made me think of fossils. To illustrate this, I auto-traced my photo of fossil leaves. They were from the late Permian period, about 254 million years old. I then added a sandy backdrop to evoke their natural environment, and applied a filter-effect, to enhance the visual impact. I finished my above artwork on 8 June, 2025.
I was impressed by a pastel artist's presentation. So I emulated such hues, layering gradients, both radial and linear. The first, radial, gradient was greyscale. For the later, linear gradients, I used colour models. I applied a red, green, and blue (RGB) gradient vertically. Then I added a cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK) gradient horizontally. I finished the above artwork on 16 June, 2025.
