His work, Ballentine in particular, are drawn on large scale (Ballentine is 20000x30000 pixels which would be about 20x30 feet at 72ppi if printed) and uses single parts to make a whole. Ballentine is drawn in Photoshop using one pixel wide lines of red, yellow, blue, white, and black. Carter used OpenLayers mapping API (similar to Google Maps) to allow the viewer to zoom and be able to view Ballentine as a bird and also to view the single lines overlapping with no discernable subject matter.
Ballentine is fascinating in that it is somewhat traditional while also identifying largely with the digital era. Its traditionalness comes from the fact that while the artist had thousands of colors to choose from in Photoshop, he simply used the primary colors and the neutral shades. The hundreds of thousands of tiny scribbles intersect in such ways to create new colors, much like how it was before paint was mass produced and artists had to understand the mixing of colors. This traditionalness is overarched by the artist's heavy use of technology - the use of a tablet, Photoshop, and mapping - to allow the viewer to observe the art in a way one would not in a more traditional manner, such as in a museum. This follows Carter's idea to allow his art to reach the masses, but I feel it holds some limitations. The viewer will never be able to see Ballentine in its entirety in its full scale, only parts to a whole. However, Ballentine fully accomplishes the goals of Carter - to create a work that a billion can view and alter.
Ballentine is fascinating in that it is somewhat traditional while also identifying largely with the digital era. Its traditionalness comes from the fact that while the artist had thousands of colors to choose from in Photoshop, he simply used the primary colors and the neutral shades. The hundreds of thousands of tiny scribbles intersect in such ways to create new colors, much like how it was before paint was mass produced and artists had to understand the mixing of colors. This traditionalness is overarched by the artist's heavy use of technology - the use of a tablet, Photoshop, and mapping - to allow the viewer to observe the art in a way one would not in a more traditional manner, such as in a museum. This follows Carter's idea to allow his art to reach the masses, but I feel it holds some limitations. The viewer will never be able to see Ballentine in its entirety in its full scale, only parts to a whole. However, Ballentine fully accomplishes the goals of Carter - to create a work that a billion can view and alter.
Found on Rhizome.
I love how the artist only used primary colors, it gives images a richer look when they combine colors to make another rather than going straight to secondary colors. I'm glad you brought up the fact that he drew the whole thing with only a single pixel width brush, it really shows how much work this artist put into his work, especially when you consider the massive scale of the piece. I marvel at how he was able to get such accurate feather texture and such a realistic looking bird using tiny scribbles.
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