Pixel to Paint: A Stop in Dafen
On creating, printing, and the allure of handmade art
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Dear friends,
since years I am talking about getting back to painting. To buy some oil– or acrylic paint, canvases (big ones) and then just go wild…
But instead I find myself in front of the computer. Working on creative projects, but again — all very digital.
Years ago I was heavly into designing posters. They were a good compromise between artistic freedom and something worth to print out. But now I don’t feel like hanging rave-posters in my apartment anymore. Maybe that comes with the age…
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Now with AI I am producing more imagery than ever — but most of them end up in folders on my hard-drive. I should print them out. Or even better: Paint them…
The Chinese city Dafen is the biggest place in the world, where you can commission people to paint or copy artworks. A 60x60cm oil-painting of a digital image starts around 400€. That’s super cheap. For a good fine-art-print you might pay around the same price.
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So that’s the plan: Create images with AI and get them get hand-painted in China. Mhm… Well, at least get one image painted and see how it looks like and how I feel about it.
I recently stumbled over this artist from Rome called Yasmine Elgamal. I really like her work, because it feels like snapshots from our world — painted in classic oil. Check out her Instagram here.
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Thank you for reading my Friday thoughts 😀
Also I am working on some projects which I will soon share. More tutorials will follow soon too…
Much love,
Marius
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