Buried at the end of my last post, I posed the question, “How do you digitize your artwork?” I embedded a crowdsignal poll with some options that came to mind, which actually represent things I’ve considered. Since I started back into the art hobby about five years ago, I’ve been taking photos of portraits using my smartphone. As the years have progressed, I think those art photos have improved thanks to technology. Although there’s still significant room to improve, I think I’ve made strides in terms of choosing better lighting conditions as well.
The challenge I’ve bumped up against with oil paint though is – it seems to be quite a bit more reflective than pencil. My favorite lighting conditions are outdoors on a sunny day, but that is much harder with paint. Many of my recent paintings are thick with oils, and end up with areas of reflective glare even after I’ve let them dry for weeks. At that point, they are dry to the touch, but somehow still don’t photograph well in direct sunlight. And if I try other photography solutions, such as taking shots without sunlight, I end up with different color effects and hues. Even a little glare would seem bad for prints that I’d have to pay to make.
So, I thought the best thing to do would be to put this question out to the world – how do other artists digitize their artwork? An additional consideration is that I’ve been mulling over the notion of selling portraits at an art fair. I recently found that I work with a very skilled painter who does this, and she recommended getting professional prints made and selling them as well. But to do that, I’ll need some very high quality images. The resolution is high on my photos, but I’m not sure if they’re up to that level. I’m definitely curious to hear from anyone who has experience in this realm.
Poll Question: How do you digitize your artwork?
Photograph using smartphone camera.
- $0 (probably already have one).
- Quality varies based on model/brand.
Scan using professional or retail services.
- $5-6 each for large pieces.
- Unknown scanner specs, would depend on retailer.
Photograph using high end camera (mirrorless or DSLR).
- $500-2000.
- High quality but may have learning curve.
Use multiple methods/have no preferred way/other.
- Prices vary.
- Could be inconsistent if using multiple methods.
Scan using home device like a flatbed scanner.
- $200-300
- Good bit/color depth and resolution more expensive.
As with my previous poll, there are a few hiccups when it comes to sharing this. The first is that apparently these polls or survey widgets don’t always seem to show up. Specifically, they don’t really play well with the WordPress Reader or when using an adblocker. Both of which I use frequently! So, the actual poll questions might be difficult to see for some readers. A quick test to see if this impacts you is to just look at the top of the post – in theory though you should see the poll right at the beginning. If there isn’t a poll right up top, I have included links in this post which should work.
The second challenge is also the same as with the last poll, which is a visual/aesthetic one. I’m so accustomed to having artwork associated with every post at this point, it’s sort of difficult to figure out a good thumbnail without it. I figured I’d take a similar path to last time; basically, do a quick little portrait of a person holding a blank sign, then paste a screen capture of the poll onto it. Last time, I did a colored pencil sketch…but since I’m all about painting now, I decided to roll with a basic oil painted piece. Here’s how it looks:
Since I started painting, I believe this is now the first time I’ve shared paintings out of the actual chronological order. I’m not sure why I’ve been trying to hold to that so strictly; I guess just being able to write about what I learn in the proper order feels right. But I should worry too much about the presentation, because I’ve always got the Art Timeline page that shows everything in the correct order. Anyhow, my thought with this one was to do a “quick” and “easy” painting, in a similar fashion to the previous survey post.
This endeavor did not turn out as I planned, though. In my hasty planning, I forgot that little detail of my multiple years of colored pencil experience. Of course I could whip up a drawing quickly; I had tons of experience to pull from. On the painting side of things, I’m still learning very basic aspects. And I hadn’t considered how difficult it would be to render facial details in a smaller area than I’d ever attempted. I should have had some idea though, because my previous attempt at something smaller was pretty rough. I simply wasn’t ready for the precision control needed here.
Overall, I think it did turn out fine…but it was a rollercoaster to some extent. It started okay, then became a disaster, but ultimately the forgiving nature of oil paints saved me. It’s not a masterpiece, but it does look enough like a person to be considered a satisfying result.
I also did a quick little progression video. I don’t know why it took me so long to finally bring this out, but I did use a softbox lighting kit to try to help the quality of this recording a bit. I bought one of these softbox things a couple years ago, and with all the chaos of moving back then, I had it stored away and forgotten. I’ve been struggling to some extent with lighting in these YouTube videos, so I thought I’d give this a try. I basically unattached/unscrewed it from the stand and placed the light on a shelf. The result was okay, but even with the cover designed to diffuse the light source, I could still see my shadow. Once I increased the speed on the video, the resulting effect was sort of disorienting. I need to experiment with some other positions.
I think with my next post, I will return to the normal chronology of paintings. More specifically, I’m going to continue exploring the proportional divider I started using for measurements. I do have an idea for another detour post though; it might be fun to share an all-encompassing survey post. Since the beginning of this site, I’ve done all my polls through the same service. So, I’ve got some older surveys that have actually generated quite a few responses (on art videos, Star Trek captains, characters, advertisements, etc). It might be fun to aggregate all of them and talk about those results. I still need to ponder how that might look, but it’s something that may be on the horizon.
