After seeing some of my recent work I was asked to do a family portrait. The last time I did a portrait on such a large scale was in 2007 in Adobe Illustrator and the last time I did a realistic portrait was probably back in 2006 of an old photographer buddy. I’ve been using Inkscape for just over a year now and whilst I’ve been doing little bits and pieces I haven’t actually done a major illustration.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of messing around with Alchemy. Whilst in search of solution for a problem in Blender I came across a rather awesome time-lapse digital painting from an upcoming Blender Foundation project, Durian. Not only was I blown away by the skill of the artist but also by the software that he uses. I’m an open source nut so was really glad to see him use GIMP and other open source software to produce his piece. One particular piece of software that stood out to me was Alchemy.
I mentioned previously how I wanted to start an Open Source Art Zine (or something similar) and I’m still looking for any input! My idea is also up on The Pool. In case you didn’t know the pool is:
…an experiment in sharing art, text, and code–not just sharing digital files themselves, but sharing the process of making them. In place of the single-artist, single-artwork paradigm favored by the overwhelming majority of studio art programs and collection management systems, The Pool stimulates and documents collaboration in a variety of forms, including multi-author, asynchronous, and cross-medium projects.
Although I’ve ordered a copy of FLOSS+Art, made by the excellent OSP I’m compiling my own thoughts on the concept of Open Source Art. You can view my progress on my wiki. I’m relatively new to using MediaWiki, having only previously used PBWiki, so once I have gotten my head around it more please do feel free to add or edit what I have written. I’m treating the writing of this document as an open source project in itself ;-)
