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In this video Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek combine to create a new person. Start with two familiar faces and create someone vaguely familiar, who exists only in imagination.

»Now Playing on YouTube Cruz, Hayek : A Photo Never Taken

The La Gata video exposes the software foundation behind a digital media portrait that seems like someone you know.

The term “la Gata” is a tribute to these two Latina superstars. It’s a slang term that, loosely, means “female cat.” The proper Spanish word for cat is the masculine, “el Gato.”

The Making of La Gata

The La Gata painting and video were digitally produced using a variety popular software applicaitions running on ordinary computers.

Gwen Stefani - Sexy

Gwen Stefani goes from sad to happy in this morphed sequence. You can also see it on YouTube.

Gwen Stefani - A Range of Emotions

Peter Gabriel Wisdom portrait Now Playing on iPod

My ghost likes to travel so deep into your space.

Simply drag from The Artist at Work to the Now Playing window, bottom left, in iTunes.

Peter Gabriel - Digital watercolor and stylus

For 2008 I’m adding video clips. Peter Garbriel ages 20 years in this morphed sequence. You can also see it on YouTube. (The one below is higher quality.)

Peter Gabriel - Yesterday and Today

Anjelica Huston - Digital watercolor and stylus

Warhol-Sunglasses
What I like about Andy Warhol is that he knew how to "photoshop" before there was Photoshop.

Simply Liz by Andy Warhol

Warhol’s portrait of Elizabeth Taylor disappointed art investors this week when it sold for less than hoped for. Auctioned for $23.6 million, it seems to me that the painting is holding its value.

Small wonder that former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan mentioned artwork in the same breath as real estate and investment portfolios when he wrote, "Stock and bond prices, homes, commercial real estate, paintings, and most everything else joined in the boom." Actor Hugh Grant, who sold the painting, realized a 665% increase over the six years he held on to his investment.

For those of you who are interested in art for art’s sake, Simply Liz’s sister painting Red Liz lives at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. To my own disappointment, she wasn’t actually on display the last time I went up there, so you may want to call ahead.

Warhol-Sunglasses 2×2

iTours Booth at Convention and Trade Show

eWarrior digital art prints dominate a room. Silicon Valley’s 2007 Real Estate Trade Show and Convention was themed "Shoot for the Stars." Three of my rock icon paintings were there to honor famous celebrities.

Immaterial Girl?

Popularity comes and goes like the tide, doesn’t it? Is this famous blonde the Immaterial Girl? One attendee confided that she liked the painting technique, but didn’t particularly care for “her.”

Classic Rocks

Another guy, commenting on the artwork seen in and around high tech offices, said he’d rather see these any day.

Brian Eno - A photo never taken

Although we’re not exactly sure what Shakespeare looked like or whether or not Da Vinci actually painted his own self-portrait, there is no historical anonymity for contemporary artists who live under the watchful gaze of the photographic eye. In fact, the same might be said about anybody who has a photo ID. It’s hopelessly likely that someone who takes an interest in you at some future date will have a good idea of what you looked like.

Enter a name, and you’ll turn up any number of photos of famous people. But, if you were searching for Brian Eno, you couldn’t have turned up this one, until today. That’s because it isn’t an actual photograph. Isn’t it interesting how human beings have the same demeanor, even over a span of decades? The photographs that seeded this image are years apart, but the "ghost" inside still shows through.

Eno - Before and after morphing

If you’re interested in Eno, San Francisco’s Laughing Squid, Scott Beale, has a great clip of Eno talking about his 77 million paintings.

Iteration - 36″x48″ Digital media on canvas

Here you see the artwork "Iteration" on the wall space I’ve chosen for it. (There is an ordinary electric socket in the photo to give you an idea of its scale.) To the regular readers of this blog, "Thanks," it probably took a little longer to get here than you expected. If you are new, this is The Artist at Work: you can browse through earlier posts for an idea of how this painting was created.

I promised to show the process of transforming artwork on a computer into something you hang on a wall quite some time ago (in "Internet time" anyway) so, to make up for the time lag, I am doing it in "real time" today. I am stopping to make this post. I’ll be done later today.

Stretching digital print onto frame

This is a key stage of the process. The print has to be centered on the frame, one staple in the middle of each side. You should be able to see the characteristic diamond-shaped fold in the middle of the canvas. If you get this part wrong, the whole mount will be a botch job. I have done it, and failed. Isn’t it easier to just buy one of these things?

Framing tool kit

Once again, people who work only with their minds on a computer may enjoy a look at the set of tools peculiar to this low-tech task. Those canvas-streching pliers are an unusual item, even for a handyman.