BY PRAJESH SJB RANA
Technology has affected art by various means as well, and no matter how different they may seem, they have started up a new revolution in art.
Art. When anyone talks about art, indistinctively the names of Dali, Picasso or Frida come to mind. We imagine brushstrokes on canvas, we imagine delicate light strokes on pictures, and we imagine curved women worked up beautifully in clay. We think of portraits, of landscapes and expressionist art.
But what if a second word is brought into the equation: Technology. We instantly think of calculators, phones and laptops. We think of results and of logical reasoning. Technology has affected art by various means as well, and no matter how different they may seem, they have started up a new revolution in art.
There are newer forms of art, always adorning the Windows on the Internet. People have started mixing traditional forms of art with technology to create newer styles. There are people making electronic music with nothing less than a MacBook. Websites have also started adopting artistic designs. An example would be the Vimeo.com design. Photos are edited with powerful software, and newspaper designs worked up on the screen. New hardware have also graced the peripherals of an artist’s computer, like the Wacom Tablets, that enable an artist to sketch directly on the computer.
Technology has come a long way in helping push art into the modern age, and if you want a taste of these new forms of art, a quick visit of DeviantArt (deviantart.com), should suffice.
There are very talented artists on Internet and some of them should inspire you to work on your own. Don’t worry, though: your computer will help you with your masterpiece.
Today, art is mostly created on the computer behind a screen, so we want to cover up some tools that should help artists of all kinds.
Color Scheme Designer (colorschemedesigner.com):
It’s a very user-friendly color tool. It helps you find that exact shade of a specific color you’re looking for, or it also has the capability of suggesting color tones based on various color theories. Another handy feature about this website it that it also generates light and dark schemed previews for a website design using the colors you selected. It’s easy to use and conveniently provides you the hex color codes on mouse hover.
Background Patterns (bgpatterns.com):
If you work with computer graphics of any kind, it’s almost evident that you’ll need access to some form of pattern that has the capability of seamlessly repeating. One great sight for this very purpose is bgpatterns.com. It has a set of patterns which you can edit and mold it in your own way.
Online Photoshop Editor (onlinephotoshopeditor.com):
A photographer will almost always need Photoshop for post-production, but in a situation where a copy of Photoshop is impossible to find, there’s an online tool that will work just fine. The Online Photoshop Editor provides you with the functionality of Photoshop within the confines of your web browser. It comes with all the basic features of Photoshop and can act as a very well equipped Photoshop replacement.
DeviantArtMuro (muro.deviantart.com):
For artists who specialize in painting and sketching digitally, DeviantArt’s online illustration application, Muro, is the best. It offers various forms of brushstrokes and painting tools. With a great and easy to use interface, it makes sketching digitally a breeze, and if you’re willing to fork up some American Dollars, you can get access to a lot more features and styles.
Scrivener (Application):
Finding an appropriate application for writers on the Internet is almost impossible. However, a Windows application by of name of Scrivener is just the tool for writers. Created by an aspiring writer who had been having trouble keeping track of the research he had done, this application will definitely help writers because of its features, like a folder for all research, and a story outline manager. It also comes with a great looking corkboard for those tiny notes and a full-screen writer that blurs out all unnecessary distractions on your screen.
There are plenty of other tools as well that can help any kind of professional and amateur artists alike. There are great art communities as well, and lot of websites that tutor and inspire. The Internet has turned into a large resource art, among a lot of other things. It has also made it easier for artists to get international recognition and sell their art online through various art communities. Some of the websites that designers and artists alike need to keep an eye out for would probably be deviantart.com for artists, 1x.com, and 500px.com for photographers and abduzeedo.com for designers. If you are more of a movie man, vimeo.com has a lot of well-directed and designed short films.
The tools are there for you to choose from and start up your own form of creativity. Get inspired, get planning, and get working.
The writer is República The Week’s much loved tech guru. He can be contacted through email with your tech queries at theweek@myrepublica.com.
