PhotoColors

A neo-pointillist art process using digitized photography and digital manipulation.

In the mid to late 1800's a brief, but significant movement in
painting evolved called pointillism. This unique form of painting was based on the scientific theories of how the optic nerve transfers information about color and how the brain interprets that information. The two best known artist using this technique were Georges Suerat and Paul Signac.

Pointillism grew out of the impressionism movement which was based, in its strictest sense, on the objective recording of nature in terms of the effects of light and color. The post-impressionists broke with this limited aim while retaining the brighter colors, freedom from traditional subject matter and use of short brushstrokes and use of broken color.

Seurat , and Signac in particular, embraced the use of the technique of broken color to form brighter, more luminous colors. At the time, the mixing of pigments allowed a limited range of color as too much pigment lead to muddy looking colors.

Their technique placed small dots or strokes of color, often contrasting, side by side. When viewed close up, the individual strokes were apparent. When viewed from a distance, they blended into a dominant color.

The PhotoColor technique uses this same, century old idea and adapts it to the technology today using photographic and digital methods to capture and transform images.

Boneparte Pine by Singac

Seurat, in his pre-photographic time, was looking for a way to
more faithfully reproduce nature with more detail and brighter colors than the impressionists. The work of the author is coming at the problem from the opposite direction, but with much of the same result. Here, the harsh edges of photographic images are being softened and a more impressionistic image is being created.

The tools of Seurat were limited, with the points of color being generated by hand. Today, technology can help us take an existing image (a photograph) and break it into raw, component colors in a dot pattern.

This scanning process forms a digital database in the computer than can be easily manipulated. A few of these manipulations are used in PhotoColors, including the blurring of edges, exploding dots of color to form a watercolor feel, lightening and darkening areas of the image and focusing attention through lighting effects. In addition to these technical areas, composition can be manipulated through addition and subtraction of elements, cropping and resizing of elements.

An extreme close-up of one PhotoColor work shows the how the individual pixel areas are exploded to small pools of color. Many of these color areas are not made up of one individual color, but a range of colors that have been blurred and modified.

Hiding Nuthatch by Joel Geske · 1997

Extreme Close-up of Eye Detail

Like Seurat and Signac the inspir- ation in all my art lies in nature and impressions it brings to me. While photographic in some detail, much is not intended as a true record, but is manipulated to create a feel and mood given the situation and circumstances of the scene.

Let me explain by describing my thought processes behind several pieces of work:

The Bloodroot is a very small wild flower. Actually, it isn't much larger than a fingernail. However , the beauty and intricacy of it is fascinating. It is one of the very first flowers to appear in the woods. While small in size, it has a very large impact as the bright whites and golden hues are a stark contrast to the drab browns and grays of the surrounding forest floor. It speaks of new life pushing through the dead leaves surrounding it (hence the stark contrast of white against dark shadows.) Although small, it pulls your eye and dominates your thoughts and seems much larger than it really is.

The Redbreasted Nuthatch is a common winter bird in our area. Here, warmer tones were used to highlight the warm tones of the bird (compare with the cool winter tones of the Nuthatch preceding). Strong lighting effects were added to give the feel of slanting light rays of winter morning or evening.

Bloodroot by Joel Geske · 1996

Redbreasted Nuthatch by Joel Geske · 1997

Seurat's and Signac's dissatisfac- tion with what they regarded as the formlessness and subjectivity of Impressionism led them to the pointillist technique (which they called divisionism.)

In search of a way to represent nature more faithfully, Seurat studied optical science and aesthetic theory. The work he and colleagues did actually was a forerunner of modern printing-- using small points of color placed next to one another to create a complex color image. A technique we still use today in CMYK printing and with digitized images.

His aim was to move away from the "muddy pigments"of the day and provide a brighter look as seen in the sample View of Fort Samson. His work brings together land and sky with a luminous quality.

While the author's Prairie Fog portrays a very different mood, it uses the luminous quality to create an impression. Here, it was a bright winter day as we drove out to a nearby prairie tract to hike. As we approached the area, a dense fog bank moved in, blanketing the distant trees in fog. However, the prairie grasses were still very vibrant in their color providing an odd warmth and contrast to the cool winter fog.

The use of the computer allowed the photo to be manipulated and the color and the luminosity of the grass areas to intensified. Again, the pointillist technique is used and is especially obvious in the tree and fog forms. (Much mre noticable in the larger original format of 11x17.)

View of Fort Samson , Grandcamp by Seurat

Prairie Fog by Joel Geske · 1997

The technique to achieve the PhotoColor look takes time and a number of steps.

Obviously, the process starts with a photo scanned into a computer. I have found for my work that I can save at very low resolutions. Many of the looser, more impressionistic pieces are started at 72 to 100 dots per inch. In effect, I am letting the computer do what the neo-impressionists had to do by handdivide or produce a small dot pattern. The fewer pixels the computer has to work with, the looser the image and more impressionistic it will be in the final form. As the artist, I need to determine how much detail I want to retain. The photo is brought into Photoshop for modification.

At this point, I can add, subtract or modify elements. In Canada Flight the geese are at least twenty feet away from one another in the original photo. For composition purposes one is moved. The small ducks in the background do not exist in the original shot. They have been moved into place and modified.

Next, in a series of steps, I blur the photo, do considerable color adjustments for shadows and color and run it through a watercolor filter (now standard in Photoshop 4but when I started I needed Gallery Effects).

Then, I still must go in and actually paint areas to bring out details and enhance colors. A final blur gest rid of pixilation, although many times I must go in and smudge areas to soften the pixels even more.

Canada Flight by Joel Geske · 1997

In some cases, considerable man- ipulation of the light and color takes place to create the desired impression.

Saguaro Sunrise is a good example. The photo was taken early in the morning and I remember the hills being strikingly purple and misty in the early morning light. The actual photo does not reflect this impression. The final product adds considerable magenta to the hill area and by using Photoshop's Render--Lighting Effects filter the light is adjusted to a low angle coming from the left to give a morning feel that I recall.

The final step is to print and this
took considerable experimentation. The secret is in using a soft paper with a "tooth". The printing is actually done on a very high end color copier (Xerox with a Fiery system front end.) By using a paper with a tooth, the toners settle into the depressions and are less attracted to the high points. This gives a further impression of watercolor settling into the depressions of the paper. The proper paper was perhaps the biggest challenge. I needed the soft, toothed paper, but had to settle for a lighter weight than I wanted to allow it to feed through the copier. An actual sample is included in Appendix A.

My work continues to evolve to more impressionistic views. The new Photoshop 4 provides even more filters and I am experimenting. The example Campus Storm uses a photo of a campus landmark on a very bright sunny day with a bright cloudless sky after a heavy snowfall. I created the clouds and using the lighting effects filter created the more ominous looking lighting. The intent was to suggest that although things appear sunny on the surface, recent tensions on the campus are brewing beneath the surface and the dark shadowy areas and uneasy feel created reflect the campus climate.

Saguaro Sunrise by Joel Geske · 1997

Campus Storm by Joel Geske · 1998

Is it photography? Yes and no. Is it painting? No and yes. While I don't physically have paints I am paiting with the computer tools to mimic watercolor. It is both, and yet no longer either. It is a new technique made possible by computer and improved color printing technologies.

A new plotting printer on campus will print on canvas. The next step is to take some of my images and using the oil painting filters or dry brush filters modify the images to be printed on canvas. In fact, the previous image, Campus Storm, used a dry brush filter instead of the watercolor and will be tested on the canvas plotter.

People always ask "How did you
do that?" From a distance they'll say"neat photo." Then they move up closer and say"That's not a photothat's a watercolor!" Then they can't make up their mind. In fact, the images are neither and both. Realistic and impressionistic. I call them PhotoColors as a combination, but perhaps a better description would be neo-pointillism.

Little did Suerat and Signac dream a century ago that the small, color-dot techniques they were experimenting with would be the basis for modern printing. Now, it's a century later and everything old is new again.

Flight by Joel Geske · 1998