Mamta Digitized
My Way to Make Digital Fine Art

The Raw Materials
To create different textural surfaces in my digital art I make textures by using a number of paint applications on paper, canvas and other materials, including effects made by using plastic wrap, dripping water and other liquids on painted surfaces. I also use natural objects like leaves, bark, wood and shells to enhance sharpness and physicality in my work. I scan natural objects by placing them directly on the scanner.

Besides digitizing textures and natural objects, I have also digitized some of my paintings, prints and collages either by photographing them or scanning them directly. They are all stored and made available in my digital toolbox so that elements of these images can be incorporated into my digital works.

Agony, a linoleum print, is an example of an earlier work that I have digitized and later used in a digital image.

I usually customize my workspace to start with so that I keep my PhotoShop working area organized, tidy
and comfortable. I normally create several workspaces to maintain work efficiency. A simple switch from one workspace to another re-configures the interface to suit my needs.

A number of selections were made in the original photograph. The selections were afterwards copied and pasted into different layers. Few of the selections like the train, (Fig E1-2) were flipped and positioned in such a way that one train seems to be moving towards another; apparently a collision is about to take place. Another train is departing from the meeting point and out of the picture. Shadows have been added to break the perspective, generating collages and creating endless game of dimensional space.

Example 2: From several photos to multidimensional painted image

The following illustration shows how several photographs can be combined, manipulated and painted by using digital tools. In this example I have chosen three photographs (E2-1,2 and 3) as my basic source.

To create a painterly background in my image, the landscape photo image in Fig E2-1 was first painted by using PhotoShop's native painting tools (Fig E2-4). As I wanted to insert the train line as the center of focus in my final image, I removed the background in Fig E2-2 by using selections and path (Fig E2-5). In Fig E2-6 I have transformed and placed the train line inside the section of the cropped sky from the photo in Fig E2-3. The sky layer was merged into the painted background layer creating an illusionist distance between painting and photography. Transparent areas in one layer above another were made by using layer mask with the soft edged brush partly to show through the layer underneath. Towards the end extra clouds were added to create space and distance. Shadows were created for each object in one dimension that reflects in another dimension to create a sense of space.

During the process I applied a number of color modes and effects, such as layer modes, blending options, light, shade, masks and filter to achieve a number of different effects in the final image, Dimension.

Example 3: Introducing Textures

My intention in this work was to integrate different forms of elements and to introduce textures to compose an image that would emit a sense of intensity and spirituality.

I associate sky and sea with dreams and spirituality and to get a dreamlike state I have chosen the two photographs shown in Fig E3-1 and E3-2 as the background for my image.