DIGITAL PAINTING

In the last years digital painting has turned into an emerging art form in which traditional painting techniques are applied through the use of digital tools by means of a computer, a digitizing tablet and software. In digital painting the artist uses painting techniques to create the digital painting directly on the computer.

Today, digital technologies have provided pigmented inks and high quality art papers (100% cotton, acid and lignin free, pH neutral, without optical brighteners, lightfast and extremely age resistant), that allow us to reproduce our digital paintings with the same quality as those offered by traditional techniques.

Nowadays, the term digital has emerged in our society, holding fast in the art scene as a new language of expression.

Digital technology has given the artist new tools that has not hesitated to use under his particular discipline of expression and creativity; adopting them as a starting point to express feelings and ideas that is, the basis of any intellectual activity, he has turned them into the most avant-garde means of cultural transmission.

Throughout history, scientific illustration has experienced numerous transformations, using the correspondent new techniques available to achieve its maximum development. This new digital language, applied to scientific illustration has its origin in two ancient concepts: the tradition of botanical prints and the accuracy and meticulousness of scientific illustration.

Throughout the centuries, the accurate reproduction of the images has become, perhaps, the most important tool of cultural transmission, turning illustrations into the main instrument for sustaining the development of the descriptive scientific knowledge. Therefore, the reproduction techniques have evolved with the development of descriptive sciences, providing higher quality, as new procedures were required to reflect the degree of development more properly.

If we analyze the different reproduction techniques used in botanical art from ancient times (Blunt,W. & Stearn, W. T. (1994,. The Art of Botanical Illustratio. New Editio,. Antique Collectors′ Club. London), we will see that the logical evolution has always been accompanied by the development of new technologies. So, the woodcuts that monopolized the reproduction of most books, texts and images over the centuries XV, XVI and XVII were replaced by the etching, as the advancement of scientific knowledge required new techniques of reproduction, capable of overcoming quality of the woodcut. Lithography finally consolidated its dominance as a method of reproduction in subsequent years.

Maybe, my degree as botanist has been one of the main reasons to adopt this digital medium, where art, science and technology join together their attributes to give a new meaning to Leonardo da Vinci′s words: "The most useful science is that one whose fruit is easiest to communicate."

The original paintings presented here are intended to preserve the philosophy and basic principles of traditional botanical illustration, applying a methodology which is not unknown to the scientific world at all, assumed daily by all the sciences and results in the application of new technologies.

Doubtless, digital technology provides a series of common characteristics to all the traditional methods of image production, showing a reality far from the revolutionary concept that at first glance may detach from. However, it is also true that its nature makes it to keep radically away from all of them, resulting in a reinterpretation of traditional art forms.

In this context, in September 2000, La Real Calcografía, a Spanish institution set up in 1789, and closely linked to the XVIII and XIX Spanish botanical expeditions around the world, promoted the creation of the Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Estampa Digital, with a clear purpose: on the one hand, incorporate digital art into the traditional world of printed images; on the other hand, to carry out an extensive research and dissemination of digital printing, and finally, to provide technical and theoretic support to the artists to properly use these new ways of expression.

My digital artwork is, therefore, the result of applying this digital medium. So, it is not a question of manipulating photographs, but the consequence of over eighteen years of experience as a botanical artist attached to the Flora Iberica Project at the Real Jardín Botánico of Madrid. All steps from the first sketch to the final result have been created manually, using digital tools. Nowadays we must add to the traditional botanical artist skills such varied instruments as computers, digital tablets and painting software that are not so different from the ones used along the history of botanical illustration, with the same common goal: to describe and explore the scientific and artistic essence of plants.

Art is the result of a creative process, original and unique in which the artist takes part in a close relationship with different materials and mediums. Digital medium becomes, therefore, in a new resource to get the final shape. However, the meeting between the artist and its digital tool does not guarantee the result of the work without a previous knowledge of the classical techniques of drawing and painting.
Digitally produced works constitute just another medium in the ever expanding realm of art. Therefore, I consider this digital medium, fully valid in our times, as the perfect link between science, art and technology.