Digital Abstract Art

As a teenager, I developed an interest in creating digital image manipulations. I’d spend hours blending pictures together in photoshop, creating my own new pictures. I haven’t done it in a while – my artistic expression having moved away from the computer and into paper and paint – but my interest was reignited the other day when I was trying to create a new banner for my Etsy shop and social media. The picture I was wanting to use as a background for my banner wasn’t wide enough for the required dimensions, so I decided to use some of my old photoshopping skills to edit a few different pictures together.

From doing this blog, posting on Instagram and making scrap paper packs that I list on Etsy, I have amassed a large number of photos of my work. Not necessarily finished pieces, but photos of my painted paper and mark making, which are ideal for manipulating and creating new work out of.

It is in some ways very different to how I normally create art – I love the process of mark making and blending colours together; it is a very tactile process for me – however, perhaps it was because it took me back to ‘my youth’, as it were, or because it was so much easier to reverse any mistakes I made, it was just as fun.

I’ve really enjoyed making these pictures over the past week and it is definitely something I intend to do more of. It is definitely not as messy as getting the paints out, but I like the results just the same. I think what makes it satisfying is knowing that I am using my own work, my own textures and my own marks to create new work. I think the next step might be printing them out and seeing how well they work in ‘real life’ outside of a computer screen.