Abstract

As an emerging art form of the twenty first century, digital painting has gained acceptance as a two-dimensional art form, paralleling major traditional forms of painting in the art world. However, this aspect of the visual arts, rather underexplored, has not received the same degree of global acceptance and recognition accorded to well known fine art forms such as sculpture, painting and drawing. In spite of the proliferation of graphic application software for digital painting and the popularity of web art galleries displaying works of renowned digital painters, digital painting is yet to be explored as a visual art form in the traditional studio painting fraternity in many African countries especially Ghana. This is attributable to the lack of expertise in computer graphic application among amateur and professional studio painters. The essence of this paper is to employ the descriptive research method to demonstrate the capabilities of the computer as a multi-media apparatus for expressivity in Fine Art Painting that can foster idea development and enhancement of techno-aesthetic values in studio painting practice. The methodological procedures as discussed in this paper were the result of the author/artist’s experimental studies in figurative composition with Adobe Photoshop. Two of the major digital art techniques: ‘Digital photo-art’ and ‘Traditional digital painting’ techniques formed the bases of this artistry.

Key words: Digital painting, graphic application software, multi-media apparatus, studio painting, Adobe Photoshop.