Michael Welch. Courtesy image.
For painter Michael Welch, the arrival of his baby daughter meant that the logistics around using the acrylics he’d been working with for years were too complicated.
“With an infant at home, there just was not time to set up and paint and take care of her during the day,” Welch says. “So I started messing around with (Adobe) Photoshop. The more I worked with it, I began to appreciate the process itself. There are just so many possibilities in creating art digitally that I stayed with it.”
Welch “paints” in Photoshop, using the software’s brush tool using a stylus on an iPad. He then prints the artwork on canvas using archival ink using a high-end digital printer. Once they’re on a canvas, Welch has them stretched and then he applies a number of acrylic gels, using different densities and sometimes color and layer on top of the image.
“I end up with a glossy or a clouded surface, depending on what is appropriate,” he says.
The latest results of that process, a series of mixed media works that Welch calls “Figures & Portraits,” at the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center (85 Throckmorton Ave.), throughout November, with a wine reception set for the Mill Valley Arts Commission’s First Tuesday Artwalk on November 7, 5:30-7:30pm.
The 411: Michael Welch showcases “Figures & Portraits,” his mixed media work on wood panels, at the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center (85 Throckmorton Ave.), throughout November, with a wine reception set for the Mill Valley Arts Commission’s First Tuesday Artwalk on November 7, 5:30-7:30pm. MORE INFO.