Duncan Long

I started having teachers single out my work in grade school and I'd started drawing at a very early age. Interestingly, I seem to
have gravitated toward writer/illustrator since a lot of those early drawings have some sort of narrative or bubble captions for
characters. I really have no formal training as such, but have read a lot of art books. But I think the real "help" has come from
the computer. My paintings and such were nothing to write home about; oils tended to be overworked until they looked like
mud.

So digital "paint" with the undo option has enabled me to be bold without paying the price for it. Without a computer, I think I
would only be a pencil or pen and ink artist (which was pretty much what my illustrations were confined to before I "went
digital").

The undo button has probably attracted many artists to the digital world. What other features or buttons could you not live
without as a digital painter?

Interestingly, as my skills develop, I seem to use the undo less (though I still use it a lot). At one point I think on occasion a
30-step undo wasn't enough -- and I'm not exaggerating. Now it seems like 8 undos will allow recovery from most corners I've
painted myself into.

I use the "smear" brush a lot in Photo Paint to even out colors, make adjustments, or even to very nearly paint. Sometimes I use
it more than the "paint" brush.

I generally modify keyboard shortcuts (when possible -- some programs unfortunately don't allow many changes) so the
commands I use most often are on the left side of the keyboard. That allows me to draw with a digital tablet with my right hand
and make changes in tools with the left hand. This can really speed up the work process since my right is just drawing/painting
without having to hit the keyboard and allows concentrating on the picture rather than the program.

The digital tablet is an amazing tool and after a time one has the illusion that work is being done on the screen -- even though the
physical movement is with the tablet located under my hand. I have tried tablet PCs and found I don't like working artwork as
well with them -- my hand obscures the view. A digital tablet discrete from the screen gives me an "invisible hand" that doesn't
get between me and the picture.

The layer feature in Photo Paint is something I find I'm using more and more. Photo Paint also has what it calls "objects" which
are more or less layers that are confined to the area that's actually in use by that layer. This makes it possible to select a small
object from a group of objects in a picture, and then re-position, re-size, modify color, or adjust the transparency of that unique
piece very easily; this doesn't sound like much until you use it -- and then it proves to be an amazing speed up and something
that allows the artist to play around with the arrangement of elements until everything is just right.

Transparency and transparency gradients are also used a lot in my work. Ditto for cutting and matting material to "mix and
match" elements from several different pictures.

I don't use plugins as much as I once did, but still generally use one or two during the course of a picture. Often I place the
plugin modification into a layer and make it somewhat transparent so the original "shines through." Thus the plugins add a "feel"
to the whole work rather than being the complete modification to the picture in and of themselves.

I should note that I often tend to look at many of the computer operations and especially plugins as production boosts or
"assistants," much in the way old-time painters relegated basic work to apprentices. Such "grunt work" is stuff the artist could
do, but having the apprentice handle it permits the master to do the things they otherwise would not have time for. Basically the
digital process speeds up some elements of art production and I get more done digitally than I ever could with actual paint.

Music is known as a sort of intelligence enhancer. How does your music degree and skill help you with the other arts?

Well. I don't know. There's a certain "intelligence" to being an artist or musician. But it isn't a verbal or even a reasoning
intelligence. You can talk to a lot of those in the arts and come away thinking, "Well, that guy was certainly a dullard." And then
you see the artwork or hear the music or read the poetry, and you think, "That person is a genius!"

Modern research is finding that the artistic brain is wired up a bit different from most of those who aren't in the arts. Now note I
didn't say it is wired up better or worse (everyone thinks their wiring is the best, right?). But by and large the artistic mind really
is a bit different and artists tend to view things from a different angle much of the time. That can be a plus or it can just as often
be a handicap, and more than a few artists go off the deep end, in large part (I think) because they are often surrounded by
people who just don't see things in the same way, creating a feeling of alienation, misunderstanding, or loneliness. Artists do
march to a different drummer (though not as much, perhaps, as some "artists" would have you believe).

That said, there can be a lot of carry over from one art to the next, at least for me. I tend to think the "Renaissance man" is really
more the natural state of an artist rather than some odd exception. That is, the "specialist" in the arts is something recent in
history.

There is a carry over from one media to another, at least there is for me. I often can't really put it into words, but there are
"processes" that I often use for composing music, for painting, or even for writing a novel. For example my work often employs
an arch form for the overall design whether we're talking a short composition, a painting, or a novel. Or I might use an
"exposition/development/recapitulation" outline for a larger piece of music or a short story (oddly, the longer form in music
seems to work for the shorter form in writing fiction as well as the inversion of each -- not sure how to explain that).

Or the idea of repeated patterns in music, a painting, or writing... When you reach enough duplication and when it becomes too
much... Mirroring, inversions, and so forth all have a carry over from one to the next.

So I see and feel connections on a number of levels and my training in music composition proved to be a great stepping stone
first to writing and then, with the advent of the computer and digital painting, to that area as well. Since then the learning sort of
bounces around from one art form to another.

Unfortunately our society (unlike those of the past) tends to pigeonhole people so they often don't have a chance to tinker in
more than one job at a time. I think that's very sad and I feel very blessed to have been able to dabble in many different types of
art.

And I still have to laugh when I get the "You aren't the guy who..." from an editor or other artist who just can't believe that I do
more than just one thing. Of course there's also the danger of "jack of all trades, master of none," and I think the time taken to
master this or that art has been greatly magnified because of my tendency to jump from one type of creativity to another rather
than just concentrating on one.

I chose "Meditation" because of the peaceful feeling it exudes. I, and probably many others, have experienced the way that
image looks while in prayer, in church, or sitting on a mountain-top or in many other peaceful situations. How did that image
come to you? How did the composition come to the surface?

You know -- this seems funny to me, though it happens all the time. I couldn't remember any such picture I had done by this
title. There's always a panic when this happens. I think, "Oh, great. Someone else did the picture the interviewer likes and --
how embarrassing for both of us -- I'm going to have to say 'I didn't do that.'" But (thanks again for computers) a quick search
of my hard drive turned it up and I thought, "Oh, yeah. That one."

I think this also shows how artists aren't the best judges of their work or its value. This is a picture I created but never felt too
close to in and of itself. I liked the idea, the message. Yet the picture... I have never been too happy with . Yet, some people
seem to really like it or even find it moving. So I don't think, as an artist, I am the best judge of the value of any given piece.

But the concept -- there I agree with your choice. I do think that people need to slow down and think and meditate more. I see
folks out walking with things plugged into their ears, or out driving or biking talking on a cell phone, and I feel sorry for them. I
feel like we've filled our schedules to the max and never have time to feel and learn who we really are.

Phones and music are great, don't get me wrong. But there are times when we need nothing to do, nothing to hear but our own
inner thoughts and the sounds of nature. We aren't cogs in a machine, yet we throw ourselves into things as if no time was
needed to understand who and what we really are.

The night sky has been lost during my lifetime; when I was a kid, I could look up and see this vast, wonderful sky full of millions
of stars. Today, it's no longer possible to see the Milky Way from most developed areas of the world due to light pollution. I
wonder how much longer folks in cities will be able to hear a soft breeze rustling through the trees, or hear their inner self
without noise. Maybe they've already lost that in some places. To me this is tragic.

You seem to use a lot of different sources for your works, such as photos, 3D renderings and objects, digital paint programs.
Perhaps "Meditation" stood out to me as being more direct, as in just the man and his brush on the canvas, paper, or tablet.
What media did you create "Meditation" with?

All my work is digital these days. I tend to use a variety of programs and often employ reference photos to work from. I guess
my attitude is "whatever works to get what I want to see." In this case, the central figure started as a render of a sitting man
created in Poser (actually created and used in other of my work). The background was probably another painting I'd done or a
photo -- greatly altered. (I don't remember what the source was, now.)

The two images were combined and modified in Photo Paint (which is where I do most of my work with illustrations and such).
I felt this particular piece needed a dreamy, "painterly" look to make it interesting, so I exported it to Artrage where I pushed
the colors around a bit to create the look one might achieve with a palette knife.

Then (I believe) those results were imported back into Photo Paint and the digital "paint" smeared a bit (perhaps) and the colors
boosted. Possibly some other processing -- I pretty much paint by the seat of my pants so sometimes I can't remember exactly
how something was achieved.

The fact that you used a Poser model is not at all evident. Perhaps that's why "Meditation" looks more like a traditional painting
to me. A lot of your works kind of exist in a dimension of reality/unreality, that is, they look both real and abstract at the same
time. "Meditation" isn't really part of that dimension, it's mostly on the abstract side, I think. Maybe that's why I chose it for this
interview, it's so different and I wanted to find out why.

If you could do "Meditation" again, not as it is now in this "dreamy" form, but in one of your other styles, how would you do it?
What would the subject and background look like?

Yes, Poser is a program I wrestle with because it tends to create figures that have the signature of Poser in how they look. The
program is a great leap forward -- I don't want to belittle the software or those who created it -- it is nothing short of amazing.
But the results are never in the realistic, soft, painterly style I often want to see, so I often really rework the colors, edges,
shadows and so forth, adding folds in clothing, muscles on skin, until the figure gets to where I want it to be. (Come to think of
it, this is generally how I work with photo references as well -- if my work looks like the original I used as the reference, then I
feel like I haven't done my job -- ha.)

If I had to do the picture over.... Well, there's a thought. I find the "do over" of something I've done previously is something I try
to avoid. The "been there, done that" factor, perhaps. But if a client came to me and said, "Hey, I'll pay you to do a picture with
this idea but..." then I would probably opt for a realistic look, with clouds/sunset in the background, and a floating figure
somewhat shadowed and perhaps a bit blurred with light streams coming from the sunset to surround the figure. I hope that
description makes sense.

In a new version, I would probably opt for the female form rather than the male. I see "woman" as the height of creation and the
grace and perfect reflected by the lines and curves of the female body is nothing short of miraculous to the artistic eye, I think.
Certainly you can see that amazement and fascination on the part of artists through the centuries.

I seldom even do any sketching on paper these days. I sort of feel guilty about that because I think an artist is probably at his
best creating a physical object as his final product, rather than a string of digitally connected electrons. But that's how it is with
my work.

Do you do involve yourself in any art shows or exhibitions with prints of your digital work? Or are you strictly on the
commercial production side of art creation?

I have not done any physical art shows or exhibitions. As a self-taught artist I have never been involved in this process. I'm the
kid who doesn't know what to do because he was "gone from school that day."

But I also hate printing my work because the print process doesn't allow the range of color or the varying degrees of brightness
that a monitor does. There will always be less range of color and brightness with print and it is almost painful to see pictures
downgraded this way. I also find computer printers frustrating to work with - the interface and software is almost always
obtuse, color calibration a pain, and on it goes.

I noticed you referrenced Robert Fripp on your website. As I am a King Crimson fan, I must ask:
Have you done any work for him?

I wish I'd been able to do work for that group because I'm a fan. I can remember in college studying some of the wonderful
King Crimson LP albums. And, being a music major at that time, and also having a rock band of my own, I was always
fascinated by the wide range of styles they integrated into their music. I had a chance to hear them live in concert and it was
amazing -- they were able to capture the same density of sound live as on their recordings. The same was true of the warm-up
act with them: Gentle Giant (and I quickly became a fan of that group for much the same reason... their amazing range of styles
and talent made me want to hang up my guitar and go into another line of work... which I guess is what I did eventually).

Gentle Giant was amazing, as were many other bands of that period. Did the fact that the music you listened to was wide
ranging in style inspire you to think creatively in the same way? I mean, did opening your ears and mind to different ranges of
musical style give you some sort of creative mindset you would not have attained otherwise?

I think that, to some extent, the more music and art a person is exposed to, the more creative one becomes. Much of creativity
is built on the past or works via synthesis and you can't build on or synthesize from what you don't have in your mind to work
with; you can't reshuffle what you don't know.

Research has also shown that our brains actually "rewire" themselves as we are exposed to novel experiences, sights, and
sounds. So the idea that listening to Mozart makes you a tad smarter is likely not too far off base. (I should note that I find
myself listening to a wide assortment of music -- in large part thanks to the many Internet broadcasts now available. Classical,
rock, ambient space, world... all come from the speakers with the selection often made according to the work I'm doing. Oddly
enough, the process of doing artwork or layout work for books goes very smoothly with music in the background, while my
writing generally demands little or no music. And -- of course -- when working on my own music there must be nothing playing
in the background - ha.)

The process of the brain gaining more connections is amazing to experience. When I started working with a synthesizer (an
ARP 2600 was my first), I soon found that I could discern things in music or even in the environment around me that I had
never noticed before. For example when a person entered an auditorium where I was watching a movie, I could detect the
change in acoustics when the reflections from the surface of the door changed. I'm sure I heard all the sounds before , my
hearing hadn't changed, but before my brain was incapable of processing the input into separate parts.

Those working with electronic music back in the 1970s called this process "ear cleaning" because it was as if wax plugs had
been removed from your ears so you heard more than you had before.

I have noticed this same sort of thing as my artwork progressed as well (and my advances in my artwork have been most
profound over the last few years). I can now "see" more colors. Where once the sunset used to be just yellow/orange/red I can
now see more subtle colors including the very light greens/blue/violet at the end of the spectrum. Likewise, at night when I look
up at the stars, they aren't all just white bits of light with an occasional bluish light; now some have very subtle colors that I just
didn't perceive before.

I also think there's a creative mind set an artist can take advantage of. Once a person simply decides to become creative,
everything seems to propel you toward that goal. And I am convinced many (perhaps all) people could be considerably more
creative than they are already, if they just changed the way they view things in very minor ways. (A quick search of the Internet
will even yield exercises that help a person to think in more creative ways as well as methods of generating new ideas and
concepts.)

Once these floodgates of creation are opened, the problem is selecting what idea I want to pursue and then in finding enough
time to realize some of these ideas (and my big aggravation is having to take on less creative jobs to earn cash to pay the bills --
and let slide ideas that would likely not generate quick cash... this is the downside of capitalism, I guess).

My big worry these days is that I won't live long enough to bring life to some of my best ideas.

Finally, I should note, from a religious standpoint, I think this drive to create is part of a "spark" instilled in human genetics,
modeled after the Creator who made us. As such, our creativity is a reflection of that driving force that created the universe.
Now I will step down from my pulpit.

I have listened to some of your compositions, fascinating. Would you be up to a future interview based on one of your musical
works?

Sure. I can never talk too much about myself (ha). Seriously, thanks so much for some thought-provoking questions and a
chance to share my ideas and feelings.

--Duncan