Introducing the High Sale Potential of Digital Art

Digital art is captivating, provocative and out of the ordinary, but is it profitable? Even though some people are eager to spend millions of dollars to acquire fine art pieces from auction houses,

it is hard to imagine spending this kind of money and walking away with only a GIF or JPEG file. Nevertheless, demand for digital art continues to grow and even though it has a long ways to go before it reaches the steep price tags seen in the contemporary art marketplace, Phillips auction house recently proved that people are willing to pay big bucks for digital works of art.

Phillips art auction house, in partnership with blogging platform Tumblr and online art auction house Paddle8, recently put on an event called, “Paddles ON! The world’s first major commercial auction of work by digital artists.” On the Tumblr site, Paddles ON! is described as an exhibition and auction that brings together artists who are using digital technologies to establish the next generation of contemporary art.

The auction was a success. It drew a large audience and brought in nearly one-hundred thousand dollars in sales. According to an article in Complex Art+Design, some of the high sellers included:

• $16,000 – Aymmetric Love Number 2, an angular chandelier made of security cameras
• $15,000 – Pixel, a wall sculpture
• $11,000 – Americans!, a software-drive animation

Seeing the profitable nature of digital art was not only exciting for the sellers. For Phillips auction house and others involved with Paddles ON!, it marked a defining moment in the evolution of contemporary art. Auction curator Lindsay Howard says, “For 20 years it’s been universities and non-profit organizations that have been the primary support system for digital art.” With great enthusiasm and high earnings, it is believed that the for-profit auction may be another place where digital artists can go to display and sell their work.

It looks like a new day is dawning for digital artists, as well as Phillips auction house. Phillips, which was founded by Harry Phillips who once served as senior clerk to James Christie of Christie’s auction house, is well positioned to dominate the digital art market. Being smaller than Christie’s and Sotheby’s allows Phillips to take on the risk of selling digital art. From the success of this first auction, it seems hosting digital artwork could come with great reward.

The future of digital art sales is uncertain but Phillips and Tumblr will continue to paddle on. The art auction goes to London next.

Read more Segmation blog posts about digital art

Inspiring Digital Art

“The Pixel Painter”

Marketing Art in the Digital World: An Introduction

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Red and Green are an Unlikely Pair

Entering the holiday season, festive color combinations will soon be everywhere. Pine trees should be adorned with red ribbon and missile toe will layer green leaves upon berries. But in nature, the colors green and red are rarely seen together. This is not because of any earth-wide grudge that exists between the colored pair. The atmosphere seems to want it this way.

Solar Storms and Auroral Contrasts

Earlier this year, a solar storm hovered over the planet. People in regions far north of the equator were able to experience a magnificent sky, bold with color. Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, occur when a number of factors line up.

It is common to see auroras feature green waves breaking throughout the sky. This year, however, in New Zealand, one man photographed a red aurora.

Red is said to be a rare shade for aurora lights. Tony Phillips of SpaceWeather.com says, “Red auroras occur some 300 to 500 kilometers above Earth’s surface and are not yet fully understood.” There are some reasons why researchers believe the red aurora is so rare. Philips indicates is may be because, “…red lights may be linked to a large influx of electrons. When low-energy electrons recombine with oxygen ions in the upper atmosphere, red photons are emitted.”

Another reason why red auroras are rare is because it is hard to predict when this natural phenomenon will occur.

Minoru Yoneto photographed the red aurora in New Zealand on Oct. 2, 2013, but most of the time auroras reflect shades of green and sometimes purple.

Travel North to see Auroras

The solar storm that took place in early October could be seen from many parts of the world, including “as far south as Kansas, Ohio and Oklahoma.” Most of the time, seeing Northern Lights requires a person be situated in a northern climate.

An article by CNN states that, “The best chance to see the Northern Lights will be somewhere between 66 to 69 degrees north – a sliver of the world that includes northern Alaska and Canada and bits of Greenland, northern Scandinavia and northern Russia.”

Those who want to see green and red collide may have to travel even further north – this color combination is said to be most prevalent in the North Pole.

Read more Segmation blog posts about Art and Atmosphere:

Light Creates Space, Color, and Perception

Extracting Art from Science

Plexiglass + Light = Awe Inspiring Art

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Art Illuminates Science

Until recently, common technology could not capture the fine details of life. A new age is upon us now. The slim and sleek devices many people carry in their back pockets are able to capture information and images that were unavailable a few years ago.

One man uses advancements in technology to artistically illuminate science. He is getting a lot of attention as a unique individual who is scientifically astute and creatively brilliant.

Merging Science and Art

Many people have thought this merger was near impossible thanks to a common misconception that humans either think with the right side of their brains or the left. As the saying goes, people are either smart with numbers and figures or see the world to creative lenses. Clearly, this is not the case anymore.

Fabian Oefner is a Swiss photographer who is contradicting this inescapable myth. Oefner goes to great lengths to put the intricacies of the world on display for all to see and experience. Using art and intelligence, he is bringing science to the public in a very creative way.

A Photographer’s Connection

He acknowledged the misnomer mentioned above in a recent TED Talk. He said, “If you look at science, science is a very rational approach, whereas art on the other hand is usually an emotional approach to its surroundings.” In recognizing this, he has made it his goal to merge these scenes and create a single image. He wants the collaboration of art and science to move a person by activating his or her mind and emotions.

Two of Oefner’s art pieces, of many, include the visibility of a sound wave and the combustion of flammable alcohol. He records the science projects with a state-of-the-art “camera that shoots 3,000 frames per second.”

Visualizing Sound: Oefner sets tiny, multi-colored crystals atop a piece of foil that rests on a speaker. When the music moves the crystals his camera captures the art of sound.

Capturing Combustion: In a second piece of artwork, he uses items a person may find in his or her home to create an explosive shot. Setting fire to a bottle of whiskey, he freezes a flame.

Fabian Oefner does not stop there. He continues to mesmerize the world with the reality of science through the vehicle of art.

More of his pieces can be viewed on this CBS news slideshow: http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-205_162-10018481.html.

Read more Segmation blog posts about Art and Science:

Extracting Art from Science

Art and Science – A Genius Combination

Art and Science – A Genius Combination

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Face the Fact, Technology Creates Art

In the 21st century, technology creates all things useful… including art. We have to face the fact that gone are the days when art belonged on an canvas, was formed between the hands of a potter, appeared from inside a slab of granite, or was developed with the intention of advancing culture.

Now there are even more dimensions of art to embrace. We can do this by recognizing how technology allows everyone to become artists by producing visual representations of who we are, as individuals and what we care about.

An online program that allows anyone to create a work-of-art is Picasa. This is Google’s free photo editing software that transforms our every day pictures into artistic masterpieces.

The newest version, Picasa 3.8, has the ability to turn anyone into an artist — or a video producer for that matter. For some time, Google’s Picasa has been an easy tool that makes photo organization and editing a breeze. It allows individuals the ability to create online albums that are easily shared with friends and family members throughout the world. Check out the Face Movie Segmation produced with it:

(If the video does not appear on this screen, visit Youtube to view Segmation’s feature Picasa film: http://youtu.be/16JPgeF5y5U)

Creating A Face Movie

It’s easy to create a Face Movie like this one. Picasa 3.8 can instruct you with step by step directions. However, it is a process that is completed with just a few clicks of a button. The program analyzes faces in the photos you want featured. Then, it couples them with the smoothest transitions in ways of facial expressions and/or poses. The different technique Face Movie uses, creating noticeably different movies, is overlaying photos organized by similar qualities, like expressions or poses. You can start creating your Face Movie today by clicking here.

Benefits of Picasa 3.8

But wait… it gets easier. With Picasa, you don’t need to scramble to find the pictures you want to use. It organizes all the photos on your PC, even those scattered throughout your system. Then, they can be easily organized into web albums.

Name Tags

Google understands that the people captured in photographs are what matter in a picture. This is why they created a collection system based on name-tags. It is a lot like the Facebook feature, “tagging.” By placing a box around an individuals face, one is able write their name and easily store all pictures where he or she has been tagged. This is also available with places, or “geo-tags,” where one can mark the exact location of the picture using Google maps.

Sharing

From there it is easy to publish your favorite photos online. You can choose to share single images or an entire album. This also allows you to connect with friends and family members and set notification settings when those you’ve set as “Favorites” post new photos.

Editing 

And you don’t need to worry about showing pictures that are sub-par. Picasa also includes an editing systems that can improve any picture. By having control of red-eye correction, lighting, and other abnormalities, you are sure to collect and share pictures you’re proud of.

The abilities of Google’s Picasa 3.8 are numerous, but you don’t have to believe us. Explore the free program and see for yourself.

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Photography: Black and White or in Living Colors

Does anyone remember a time before color photographs?

When photography began to flourish in the early 1900s, the camera produced only black and white images. However, a desire stirred inside many people, like physicist James Clerk Maxwell, who wrote about the first technique used to color photographs in 1855. Through his work, other photography enthusiasts were able to develop the capacity to capture life in living colors.

Maxwell predicted that it was possible to capture the essence of a photograph—the arrangement of color—in a time when only black and white photographs were produced. He wrote about color vision; a study to advance the concept that color identified by both human brains and machines is based on the wavelengths of light that reflect, emit, or transmit color signals. Maxwell found that a wide range of colors could be created by mixing only three pure colors of light: red, green, and blue. This manipulation of color had to be done in proportional amounts to stimulate the three types of cells the same way “real” colors did. In his writing, Maxwell used black and white photography as an analogy for his findings.

Maxwell’s Analogy:

If three black and white photographs were taken of the same setting through red, green, and blue filters, then made into transparencies (also known as negatives or slides), one could project light through these filters and superimpose them into a single image on a screen. The result would be an image that reproduced all of the colors seen in the original setting, not just red, green, and blue.

At this time, Isaac Newton’s work advancing the fact that all color is influenced by light, was common knowledge. In a similar fashion, Maxwell insisted that eyes see color on the surface of a perceived shade, where millions of intermingled cone cells represent only three colors. Red and blue sit at opposite ends of the spectrum with green planted as a middle region. They signal sensitivities (red) and stimulation (blue) that eyes receive when light shines through particular colors. The process of taking a set of three monochrome “color separations,” was also known as the triple projection method. Maxwell’s analogy was first tested by Thomas Sutton in 1861. However, the experiment did not work and the desire for photographs to represent living colors encouraged other enthusiasts to develop the art of color photography, which picked up steam again in 1890.

Color photography has been around for a little over one hundred years, and look at how far it has come. Flawless colors and mass production of images show how color photography has influenced enthusiasts and much of the world. This, however, is made possible because of the records kept during photograph exposure, like the triple exposure method which was outlined in Maxwell’s analogy. At the end of the appropriate exposure time, analyzing the spectrum of colors into three channels of information, red, green and blue, helped form a method to imitate the way a human eye senses color. The recorded information has been used to reproduce and enhance the original colors by mixing together aspects of the red, green, and blue lights and removing or adding elements of white light.

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The Healing Power of Color (www.segmation.com)

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As an artist, you are probably aware of the effects that different colors can have on your state of mind and emotional well-being. In fact, in a past article we discussed the psychology of color and provided an overview of how each color can impact your mood.

In this article, we’ll take a look at color therapy, also known as chromotherapy, and how you can apply the basic principles of chromotherapy in your art.

Color therapy involves using, or meditating upon, specific colors to help you find balance and harmony, both inner and outer. There are many forms of color therapy, such as:

• surrounding yourself with a color that represents characteristics that you feel are lacking in your life, to achieve balance

• immersing yourself in a color that represents characteristics, or states of being, that you aspire to

• using colors to “cleanse” your physical body and achieve physiological harmony (such as practiced in Chinese therapy)

While color therapy was once regarded as a New Age fad, today the effects of colors on a person’s mind, body and spirit are well-documented. Even commercial paint manufacturers recognize the connection; some offer a specific range of paint colors that are designed to promote healing and wellness.

To utilize the healing power of color in your art, you can create paintings or drawings based on specific colors to bring about a certain adjustment in your (or someone else’s) mental, emotional, or physical state of being. You can use a combination of colors to evoke a certain state of mind. Experiment with different patterns and compositions and take note of how the paintings affect you.

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3 Ways that Artists Can Benefit from Blogging

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Before the invention of photography, artists had to work from real life. How did that affect artists’ working habits?

The necessity of working from life meant that in order to paint a portrait, the sitter had to pose for hours, days, weeks, and sometimes months before the artist was finished. To paint a still life, the artist would have to make sure the set-up stayed the same day after day, and could only paint when the lighting conditions were the same as the previous day. For landscape painting, artists would have to finish as much as possible on-site and often complete the final painting in their studio, often surrounded by smaller studies that contained notes on which hues and values to place where.

The invention of photography – especially digital photography – has changed the way artists work. Thanks to the convenience of affordable digital cameras, artists can easily take a variety of high-quality pictures of whatever they want to paint, and then instead of working from real li

The main goal of art marketing is to get your art out there. The more people that know about you and your work, the better. Blogging is an excellent – and free – way to put you and your art in front of a wider audience. In this article we’ll take a look at how artists like you can benefit from keeping a blog.

What is a blog?

“Blog” is short for weblog – a word that was first coined in 1997 when the general public was still getting its feet wet with the Internet. At first, blogs were merely online diaries – personal accounts of people’s daily lives. As the Internet has matured, blogs have turned into so much more. Blogs are now powerful marketing tools that are used by corporations and individuals alike to promote their businesses.

How can blogging be used as an effective art marketing tool?

1. Blogs provide exposure. The search engines love frequent-updated blogs. Each update you post gives you another chance to be found on the Internet – by a gallery owner, a potential collector, or anyone who might be of benefit to you and your business in some form.
2. Blogs provide insight. When you blog about your art, you can write about everything from your inspirations to your struggles and everything in between. Blogs give gallery owners and potential collectors insight into your working process, which shows them that you are a serious artist.
3. Blogs facilitate connections. People who buy artwork online are more willing to purchase art from someone with whom they feel a connection. Blogging allows you to connect with your fans and collectors on a personal level – showing them that you are a real, live, trustworthy human being, as opposed to an impersonal collection of pixels on the screen.

These are just some of the many ways that artists can benefit from blogging.

One final note: remember that a blog is better as a supplement to your website, and not a substitute. While some artist blogs double as an online gallery and a blog, it is generally better to keep the two separate, so that it is easier for your site visitors to navigate from your new content in your blog to your static content on your website (such as your gallery).

Ready to set up your art blog? You can start a blog for free through WordPress or Blogger. Have fun!

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Painting from Real Life vs. Painting from a Photograph

Which is better: painting from real life, or painting from a photograph?

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Before the invention of photography, artists had to work from real life. How did that affect artists’ working habits?

The necessity of working from life meant that in order to paint a portrait, the sitter had to pose for hours, days, weeks, and sometimes months before the artist was finished. To paint a still life, the artist would have to make sure the set-up stayed the same day after day, and could only paint when the lighting conditions were the same as the previous day. For landscape painting, artists would have to finish as much as possible on-site and often complete the final painting in their studio, often surrounded by smaller studies that contained notes on which hues and values to place where.

The invention of photography – especially digital photography – has changed the way artists work. Thanks to the convenience of affordable digital cameras, artists can easily take a variety of high-quality pictures of whatever they want to paint, and then instead of working from real life, they can work from their photographs.

In many ways, this has made representational painting easier for artists. They no longer have to wait until weather and lighting conditions are just right for outdoor painting, and sitters no longer need to spend precious hours posing for a portrait. While many artists now embrace the use of reference photos as aids to creating paintings, others still prefer to work in the style of the old masters. Which way is better?

One drawback to painting from photographs is that the resulting artwork may appear “flat”, because the objects, scene, or person depicted in the painting was first translated into 2-D form via the camera. When an artist works from real life, she has to use her artistic skills to transform the 3-D view before her into 2-D form on her canvas. When working from a photograph, an artist may become too reliant on depicting the actual 2-D photo, as opposed to depicting the 3-D scene that the photograph itself depicts.

Even so, the use of reference photos has largely aided artists in their working process, although each artist has his or her own preference between working from photos or working from real life.

So artists, when it comes to working from real life vs. working from a photograph, which do you prefer, and why?

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Art Basel with Lois Ostrov Abstract Artist!

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A beautiful collection of 22 tropical and abstract artworks by Lois Ostrov, an award winning water color and water media artist living in the Miami, Florida area. You’ll find oranges, sailboats, hibiscus and poppy flowers as well as a lighthouse, and toucan in this warm blend of South Floridian themed collection.

Lois Ostrov, originally from Ohio, taught for 25 years before choosing South Florida as the physical place to further develop her art.

Curious about textiles, her first fine art medium, she began to research other techniques of the fine arts. Ostrov found that painting, with collage added, provides the greatest opportunity to express ideas and thoughts in a personal and creative way.

As an artist, selection of colors and mediums depends on the atmosphere and surroundings of the places to choose to paint. Paint in a series. The colors, forms, and textures depicted in each series are quite different. The spirituality one feels about a place is an integral part and helps develop a personal relationship with the environment when painting.

Vision for work is acquired from photo references taken on locations from around the world. The right blend of photographs enhances feelings about a place and allows the construction of a perfect painting!

Ostrov invites the viewer to enjoy, analyze, and question her work.

Ostrov paintings have won awards and placed in juried shows including: Art Serve Broward County, Artists’ Eye Fine Art Gallery, Art Expressions Gallery Artists Haven Gallery, Broward Art Guild, Broward Library Gallery 6, Coral Springs Museum, Cornell Museum of Art, Delray Museum Art School, Florida Watercolor Society (Signature Membership), Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, Gold Coast Watercolor Society, Hollywood Art Guild, Miami Watercolor Society (Signature Membership), Palm Beach Watercolor Society, Parker Playhouse, Plantation Art Guild and in private and commercial collections.

In the Press: April 2006 Edition of Palette Magazine, April, 2006– Edition of Watercolor Magic , August, 2003–City Link, December, 2002–City Link

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