MousePaint

Mousepainting is a more or less self-coined term. Actually, I don’t paint with the mouse. I make drawings by hand, usually in ink, with a fountain pen. Next I scan the drawing and add colour with MS Paint, because I am too lazy to use pencils or paint.

Sometimes it does not work, don’t know why. The little bucket just won’t spill it’s coloured pixels between the lines.

No worries (a bit though, I like colour), I go straight to the next step: open the picture in Picasa and adjust it as a photograph. Oh, Picasa is no longer supported by Google. So, now I try other free editors, like Photoscape,  to phuck the picture up.

Up till then, it’s all for free, but when it comes to printing I rather spend some extra  money. I have to be there and adjust the colours and frame, otherwise pieces and tones will be missing for sure. What you see on the screen is not always what you get.

Here are three pictures I made last night and today. In There you see the coluring from MS Paint. The other two are adjusted with Photoscape: Bird Leaves Frame and Closed 2 Open.

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You can find other examples spread across my Palescue blog postings and on some other webpages.

I started this way around 2009. Doodling away during long telephone conversations I found that the picture in the end was sometimes worthy for keeps. I made prints at the local photography shop, also as a way of preservation. Other people than my girlfriend also turned out to like the colurful pictures (“like, yeah, a bit Cobra-ish”) and I’ve had the chance to exhibit them. Even sold a few of ‘em.

Although I can print the images ‘larger than life’ I usually stick close the original and at home I can scan A4, at a school nearby I can scan on A3 format.

Sometimes I have awkward discussions with artists about the pricing. They think I ruin the market by asking €50,- for an A4 or A3 sized picture. I usually say they are not unique, it’s a photograph, so I can’t ask much.

Actually, I never make more than one print at a time. And everytime I make another print of the same image, it turns out different.So, the theory of limitless reproduction does not really hold up. Besides that, the truth is I am too unknown, so with higher prices I would not sell at all.

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