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Painting the Digital River: How an Artist Learned to Love the Computer | 
| Author: James Faure Walker
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
Buy Used: $10.42
You Save: $14.57 (58%)
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 893003
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0131739026
Dewey Decimal Number: 776
EAN: 9780131739024
ASIN: 0131739026
Publication Date: January 27, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Some cover wear, pages clean no marks. Customer satisfaction guaranteed.
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Product Description
"This book is as much about painting as it is about the digital world. But beyond both it's really about visual intelligence. What makes it a joy to read is the lovely match between Faure Walker's subject and his style of writing: apparently artless, just making itself up as it goes along, but actually always with a witty spring, and never slack." -- MATTHEW COLLINGS, artist, critic, author, and television host "As a painter himself, James Faure Walker opens up a provocative dialogue between painting and digital computing that is essential reading for all painters interested in new technologies." -- IRVING SANDLER, author, critic, and art historian "Faure Walker has a distinguished background as both a painter and digital artist. He is an early adopter of digital technology in this regard, so has lived the history of the ever-accelerating embrace of the digital. On top of this, he is a good storyteller and a clear writer who avoids the pitfalls of pretentious art-world jargon." -- LANE HALL, digital artist and professor "Using a wide stream of fresh water as a metaphor, Faure Walker depicts a flow of ideas, concepts, and solutions that result in digital art. All the core elements of an art-style-in-making are here: ties with mainstream and traditional art, stages of technological progress, and reflections on the bright and varied personalities of digital artists. With a personal approach, Faure Walker presents vibrant, exciting, emotionally overpowering art works and describes them with empathy and imagination. This entertaining, sensitive, and observant book itself flows like a river." -- ANNA URSYN, digital artist and professor "Something like this book is overdue. I am not aware of any comparable work. Lots of 'how to do,' but nothing raising so many interesting and critical questions." -- HANS DEHLINGER, digital artist and professor "Here is the intimate narrative of a passionate yet skeptical explorer who unflinchingly records his artistic discoveries and personal reflections. Faure Walker's decades of experience as a practicing painter, art critic, and educator shine through on every page. The book is an essential resource for anyone interested in digital visual culture." -- ANNE MORGAN SPALTER, digital artist, author, and visual computing researcher This book is about art, written from an artist's point of view. It also is about computers, written from the perspective of a painter who uses them. Painting the Digital River is James Faure Walker's personal odyssey from the traditional art scene to fresh horizons, from hand to digital painting--and sometimes back again. It is a literate and witty attempt to make sense of the introduction of computer tools into the creation of art, to understand the issues and the fuss, to appreciate the people involved and the work they produce, to know the promise of the new media, as well as the risks. Following his own winding path, Faure Walker tells of learning to paint with the computer, of misunderstandings across the art and science divide, of software limitations, of conversations between the mainstream and digital art worlds, of emerging genres of digital painting, of the medieval digital, of a different role for drawing. As a painter and computer enthusiast, the author recognizes the marvels of digital paint as well as anyone. But he also challenges the assumption that digital somehow means different.The questions he raises matter to artists of every background, style, and disposition, and the answers should reward anyone seeking insight into contemporary art.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Why artists should care about computers March 12, 2007
K. Adam White (Providence, RI USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is not just about painting, although painting is probably the most visible and best example of the world James Faure Walker explores: a world where all too often traditional artists, confronted by new technologies, either embrace the new completely or shun it totally. Faure Walker admits he fell in love with computers, but he understands the criticism from the more reactionary camp and this book goes a long way to creating a much-needed dialogue between the two opinions.
I will not repeat what other reviewers have said (Meryl Evans' review on this page is a particularly good summary), but I will try to add a personal opinion. This is not about a journey "From Traditional to Digital Painting". This book is about finding a place between the two where the artist can be happy, and hopefully this book will also help carve them out a niche in which they can be accepted for doing what they love. It is also a call to artists everywhere to push the boundaries, to stop creating second-rate digital art and finally do something extraordinary with it.
As a student of animation I've read a great deal about computer graphics and their relation to art, but this book is the best I've found. Faure Walker comprehensively grapples with the question of why digital or analogue matters artistically, and his conclusions are important to both artists and digital developers. If you have ever tried to wrap your head around any kind of digital art, if you care about where painting is going, you owe it to yourself to read this book.
An artists' journey from traditional to digital painting April 13, 2006
D. Donovan, Editor/Sr. Reviewer (California, USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
James Faure Walker's PAINTING THE DIGITAL RIVER is also a top pick for art libraries, coming from an artist's viewpoint and exploring James walker's personal journey from traditional to digital painting. Walker learned to paint with the computer only after overcoming software problems and misunderstandings: he's now both an artist and a computer enthusiast and here provides both a memoir of his transition to the digital realm and back and a survey of tools, models, and designs. His outstanding coverage will appeal to both artists and computer users who would blend art with digital processing.
 A look at digital art as compared to traditional art February 5, 2006
Meryl K. Evans (Plano, TX)
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
Painting the Digital River takes a view of art by comparing digital art and classic art. Author James Faure Walker makes many points as he gives value to both art forms, discarding neither as less legitimate than the other. Himself an artist, Walker knows that many artists are confused as to what it means to be an artist and expert at what they do. He says that artists must know about painting, its past and its present, and possess some knowledge of the digital form.
Walker discusses the classical way of learning to draw and paint, and then looks at the tools available for artists today. Just as canvas, brush and pigment all come in many qualities; the digital world offers a variety of hardware and software to enhance the finished product of the artist's vision.
He describes a variety of activities illustrating different forms of digital art and tries to answer many of the questions faced by artists of today, lovers of art, and the museums and galleries that display the new art forms. The author covers some of the work - both classical and modern that he has viewed - finding some of it a waste of time and others breathtaking.
Where the author finally reconciles the different forms of art is in the mind of the painter, the inspiration, the idea from which his work flows. Whether with brush on canvas or printmaking using computer graphics, the painter's talent most affects the quality of the art. Still, he adds, "that for all its faults, digital art has a life of its own."
This book starts and ends with the metaphor of the river (Walker works overlooking the Thames); the river changes, it flows this way and that. Painting, like the river, follows a winding course and has quirky ways.
This book is timely as many people are confused by all of the digital art and are trying to put it in perspective - is it art? Is it the only art (from now on)? The author tries to sort out and help understand what painting is and that there is good and bad art in the new digital world just as there always has been with ink and paint. He does a good job reviewing art history and providing technical insight. Painters, art historians, those who appreciate what they see, as well as those interested in the technology that produces digital paintings should find the book worth exploring.
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