1976

https://nocontext.loener.nl/fullpage/03-March1976-Page-017.png

#photography #illustration #madman #nocontext #sfw #VintageAdvert #TelevisionRepairKit #CRTTV #TestPatterns #ElectronicComponents #Multimeter #BBSElectronics #1970s

Frog Abundance

You can purchase merchandise featuring this design at https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/164227732 or simply download a free hi-rez copy at https://ko-fi.com/s/09333c8784

Time to come clean: while I can sort of see the frog in the final product, no frog images were used, and it's really more the colors than the shapes in this one. That said, "Frog Abundance" is just a fun name, and sometimes naming my work is harder than making it.

I have many more "pattern-esque" works in my catalog than pieces with one main image that doesn't really suggest tiling. This is one of the most representational of the latter. I like it, but it's always felt slightly out of character.

Having confessed all of that, I still hope you enjoy it. It's a bit psychedelic, which is ironic I suppose given that one can trip by licking frogs (actually they're lizards, but that's neither here nor there). It's one of my earlier pieces, and if I were creating it now I suspect it would be very different, but I don't redo old work except when it really, really sucks.

#art #DigitalArt #wallpaper #AbstractArt #artist #ArtistsOnMastodon #MastoArt #FediArt #free #TestPatterns

Floral Burst

https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/163929246 for merch featuring the design, or head to https://ko-fi.com/s/3bfb1d8e46 to score yourself a free, hi-rez digital copy.

Not a whole lot to say about this one. I almost worked it to death and had to toss it, but then something in it suggested fireworks to me, so I did some manipulation to make the bursts more burst-y and added some glow and here we are. It started out looking very neon, and I like the idea of neon tubing bursting into existence in the sky. Maybe we've captured this process in the middle, and if you wait a bit longer they'll resolve to readable signs.

I suppose one other possible interpretation is not that things are being exploded into being but being imploded out of existence. Maybe there are numerous black holes sucking the neon out of existence. I guess then it all depends on your opinion of neon lighting whether or not that's a good thing.

#art #DigitalArt #wallpaper #AbstractArt #artist #ArtistsOnMastodon #MastoArt #FediArt #free #TestPatterns

Flight

If you go to https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/163905131?asc=u you'll find all sorts of merch featuring this design, but you can also get a hi-rez version for free from https://ko-fi.com/s/ccdafdc770

I'm not sure what sort of wings are being depicted here. Part of me likes the idea of feathers, the part that doesn't like flying insects. It could be fluttering golden feathers, with some blue ones thrown in. A mythical bird perhaps. But on looking at it again, I see scales too, and I wonder whether these are dragons' wings.

Whichever option you prefer, I like the energy and motion of this piece. It's cheerful, which isn't always the case with my work, I know. I can practically hear the flutter of the wings, maybe the tweeting of birds or chittering of insects. It makes me want to fly myself. I hope you enjoy it too.

#art #DigitalArt #wallpaper #AbstractArt #artist #ArtistsOnMastodon #MastoArt #FediArt #free #TestPatterns

Firmament

https://ko-fi.com/s/2aed3d64c7 is the place to go if you want a free, high resolution copy of this image, or if you like physical objects, there are many of them available at https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/163904957?asc=u

With that out of the way, I confess that, despite the slightly biblical title for the piece, this was definitely inspired by the images of the background radiation of the universe I've seen. Except I imagine that this is before it had a chance to settle down to background radiation and was a bit closer to the moment of creation, whatever you choose to interpret that to mean.

Religious themes are fraught with a certain degree of controversy these days, which is interesting because for much of human history art and religion have been entangled almost to the point of being a Gordian Knot. Certainly there are still plenty of religious artists out there, but art is no longer solely the province of the Catholic Church in the west, for instance.

I occasionally let religion inform my work, even though I would hardly describe myself as religious. Religion permeates our culture to the point that I know plenty about faiths in which I have no belief. It's hard not to.

#art #DigitalArt #wallpaper #AbstractArt #artist #ArtistsOnMastodon #MastoArt #FediArt #free #TestPatterns

Fear and Paralysis

No need to be afraid: you can download a free, high resolution copy of this image at https://ko-fi.com/s/33d9cd7993 or get merch featuring the design at https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/163904722?asc=u

You may have noticed that I create designs which might trigger your trypophobia, so you might be surprised to learn that I have a bit of it myself. This piece excites a strong visceral reaction in me which I find interesting because overall it's not a particularly scary piece. The colors aren't what one might call creepy, there's no suggestion of anything scary, and yet I called it Fear and Paralysis because it evokes that sensation for me.

By that, I don't mean the piece itself scares me. It does give me a little of the creepy crawlies because of trypophobia, but nothing major. The piece, rather, looks like being frozen with fear feels to me, if that makes any sense.

It also resembles the UV pictures of the surface of the sun I've seen, so maybe that's what you see instead and it's a pleasant experience for you. I hope so.

One might wonder why I would create work which is evocative of negative emotion. I might try to justify it by saying that it helps me exorcize the demons or whatever, but in truth I just want to share my impressions of life via art, and negative emotions and sensations are part of my experience.

#art #DigitalArt #wallpaper #AbstractArt #artist #ArtistsOnMastodon #MastoArt #FediArt #free #TestPatterns

Fatigue

Merch featuring this design is available for purchase at https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/163904555?asc=u or if your tastes run a little less expensive, you can download a free, high resolution version of the piece at https://ko-fi.com/s/4f3ab894d6

I feel this piece deeply in my soul, particularly in the morning or at the end of a long day. It's an expression of that, but it also reminded me of the way metal looks when it's maybe no longer at full strength, either through stress or decay. There's definitely an element of flaking rust here, or verdigris maybe on a bronze statue where the wax has begun to wear through.

All that said, I looked at the piece more recently and thought, "This is camouflage." Which wasn't what I was going for at all, but now that I examine them, a certain number of my works could be used as camouflage, either in the real world or in some fantasy realm where backgrounds are a bit different. So if that's what you saw when you first looked at this piece, I don't blame you.

#art #artist #AbstractArt #DigitalArt #wallpaper #free #ArtistsOnMastodon #FediArt #MastoArt #TestPatterns

Eye

At https://ko-fi.com/s/b63709f778 you can download a free hi-rez copy of this piece, or purchase merch featuring it at https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/163811973?asc=u

I mean, you can't really see anything else, can you? It's a hurricane over some tropical islands. It's spinning counterclockwise so it's in the northern hemisphere, but whether it's a typhoon or a hurricane I don't know. I picture it as a storm in a fantasy realm anyway, so all that doesn't really matter.

No long explanation of the piece or my process today. I like this one not because hurricanes are pleasant but because I imagine the tropics over which this storm is spinning might be full of pirates. Make of that what you will.

#AbstractArt #ArtistsOnMastodon #DigitalArt #artist #wallpaper #free #art #MastoArt #FediArt #TestPatterns

Exalted

You can download this piece for free as a high resolution digital image at https://ko-fi.com/s/028aa065a8 or purchase merch featuring the design at https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/163811730?asc=u

I'm not religious. I might be spiritual at times, but religion, as with many things involving groups, largely leaves me cold. But there are some things about it which I wish came without the associated baggage, and one of them is stained glass windows. Yes, there are secular stained glass windows but it still carries that religious context.

Anyway, this isn't a stained glass window. It's Heaven, or God, or the transmigration of souls, or whatever. It's the real Good Place. If I wake up one day and see this stretching out ahead of me, I'll be happy. I don't expect it, but it certainly would be a pleasant surprise.

A lot of my work is darker for various reasons, not least of which is that I think darker works better as desktop and phone wallpaper. I initially started making these because I wanted desktop wallpaper on a computer which is now gone to computer heaven. I just think the icons pop and the contrast is better with dark wallpaper.

But every so often, I'll make one which is brighter and I won't try to change it. I can't tell you why. There's one work of mine which I love but which I think is terrible wallpaper, and I'll point it out when we get to it. This one is fine, but I think it works better as other things.

These days I don't spend much time worrying about my desktop. I don't clutter it up anymore, so there's very little to see there. So art's efficacy as wallpaper has become secondary to whether I like how it looks. I love the glow in this one. I think it really captures how I wanted it to look. Glow is sometimes hard to pull off, particularly in a piece which doesn't have much darkness to contrast with the glow.

Anyway, hope you enjoy looking at it, even if you decide not to use it as a backdrop because it's too bright. And if you resist religion and so forth, think of it as a field of stars 😅

#art #DigitalArt #wallpaper #AbstractArt #ArtistsOnMastodon #artist #MastoArt #FediArt #free #TestPatterns

Essential

This piece is available, free, in high resolution at https://ko-fi.com/s/70917c2447 or on merch at https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/163811573?asc=u

This piece is named for the idea espoused by Plato that reality as we experience it is merely the shadows on a cave wall lit by firelight, and the true form of things can't be experienced until you leave the cave and look at things in the light of the sun. But I would argue that everything is representation. This piece is no more the Platonic ideal of the essential nature of things than any piece of art, but as humans we're limited by our ability to perceive, and art isn't about capturing the whole as much as it is providing a lens through which to experience something.

That's all well and good, of course, but the essential nature of things is something we strive to experience even though we can't. We long for truth in a world of gray uncertainty. It seems like the more information we have, the farther away that certainty which we long to be comforted by remains. So I guess this is my expression of that human anguish. We're smart enough to know that we don't know, and may never know, and that's rough.

But at the same time, the shadows on the cave wall aren't lies. They're just less accurate representations. If we recognize them as such, we can see through a glass darkly, as it were, but still see something of that essence. You can identify a shape based on the shadow it casts if you twist and turn it enough. So this is also a piece about shadows hiding and revealing. Maybe you see some truth in it. I hope so.

Or maybe you just like the colors and shapes, and that's okay too. Not everything needs to be deep. I find this piece soothing to look at, and maybe you will as well.

#art #DigitalArt #wallpaper #AbstractArt #artist #ArtistsOnMastodon #MastoArt #FediArt #free #TestPatterns