These days, the term "digital art" can either mean
digitally created art or digitally
reproduced art.
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| "African Plains," by Karen Carr ©1995
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Karen
Carr, who creates highly accurate natural-history
illustrations and murals for museums, schools, and zoos,
is involved with both digitally created and digitally
output art. And with the help of the Roland Hi-Fi JET
piezo inkjet printer, she is now exploiting the benefits
of digitally proofed art.
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| "Edwards Aquifer," by Karen Carr ©1996
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Until two years ago, Carr painted each mural by hand.
She would spend countless backbreaking hours applying
traditional oil paints and watercolors to bring life to
the walls of museums. Then, she discovered the joys of
digital painting and happily traded in her paintbrush
for a computer mouse and stylus and began painting
murals from the warmth and safety of her own studio.
Now, rather than painting the murals on the walls
herself, she sends her digitally created files to her
clients, who take them to the digital-printing service
bureau of their choice for output and installation. Her
murals have been reproduced as LightJet prints or e-stat
transfer prints, then are applied in sections to the
wall like wallpaper.
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| "Jurassic Landscape," by Karen Carr
©2000 |
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Carr's biggest mural, Jurassic Landscape, is
65 ft long and two stories high, and recently won first
prize in an international competition for dinosaur
illustration. The mural, shown here, is installed at the
Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History as part of
its Ancient Life gallery. It was designed by Gerard
Hilferty and fabricated by Maltbie. Carr has produced
five murals for the hall to date, and is working on
three more.
Carr uses her wide-format inkjet printer to give
clients a more accurate idea of how the finished mural
will look. Some of the proofs she prints on the Hi Fi
Jet are scaled-down versions of the entire mural; some
are been sections of the mural printed at full size.
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| "Pleistocene Landscape," by Karen Carr
©2000 |
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"The smaller 17-in. prints I used to send clients
just didn't cut it," says Carr. She says e-mail isn't an
option either, because the client's monitor probably
won't display colors the way hers does. With portions of
the mural output on the Hi-Fi Jet, clients can not only
see image details in full size, but they also see a more
accurate representation of the colors Carr has in mind
for actual mural.
Carr acknowledges that not all artists share her
enthusiasm for digital painting., but notes that "You're
still spreading paint-it's just sort of digital paint."
She says she approaches digital painting the same way
she paints in oil: "I start with a pencil layout that I
draw by hand, then I'll work it up and start adding
color with glazes." She uses fractal programs, such as
Painter.
"The only thing that's real intimidating to me right
now is the speed at which things change," says Carr.
When she and her husband were shopping for the inkjet
printer, they asked themselves: "If we buy this today,
what if something better comes out next year?" At some
point they simply determined exactly what their needs
were, then found the device that matched those needs.
For more information on Karen Carr and her work see
The Big Picture, March/April '01 issue, or visit
her website at www.karencarr.com.
