The Blue Chip Project – Digital Art Collaboration

Nancy Corderman is a digital artist and writer from Arizona, USA. I recently questioned Nancy about her innovative collaboration project The Blue Chip Project.

 

How did you come up with the idea for the Blue Chip Project?

This whole chain of events started with Joszie Fazio, David Skybound Rosenak, joined by my personal Facebook friends in their instant Feedback on my question to them "What do you see?"

 

 

Above – The Original “Chip” for the Blue Chip collaboration project, by Nancy Corderman

There's another event that must be included in the mix- a Linkedin fellow member, Deb McEachern-Burton who, at some point just before I started a new painting, had thrown out an idea for gathering up all of us digital artists in one group - the artists who had similar styles.

Anyway, the chain of events started that day on Facebook led me to simply throw a chip of data out there to all artists to use in order to see what they make of it. I thought for a long time about this idea after Joszie and David had given me their insights and visual interpretations of the images THEY saw in a simple ghost-like background I had done for a painting. The painting ended up being the one most popular with my viewers and is titled "My Own Sanctuary".

 

What reactions have you had to the Blue Chip Project?

 

The interesting thing I drew from this is that I was shocked at the vast differences we have in what we see before us- I actually expected everyone to be able to see the same thing I saw- call that ignorant or whatever, but I found out that everyone saw completely different things and what THEY saw intrigued me to the point of feeling the need to explore on their visions.

I found that I could NOT develop my painting into what they saw, but instead I painted what I felt came naturally to me- the ROCKS that fill the painting were as clear to me as the day.

[Right- My Own Sanctuary – Jo Corderman Art]

It was a risk to throw those chips out there, and I was not sure if anyone would be interested unless I explained WHY I was doing this.

 

What artists have joined the Blue Chip Project collaboration thus far?

 

The first one to submit her rendition of the blue chip was Joszie- and it fascinated me that even though she paints on canvas, her strong sense of interpretation allowed her to go for it anyway and she made use of her abilities to offer her version of the chip. Michael Gaudet was next to express a strong interest and he is currently working on his piece. Shawn Todd O’Malley dove right in immediately - he showed much enthusiasm and submitted his piece within days of grabbing that blue chip.

 

Above – By Shawn Todd O’Malley

It wasn't until we had the three side-by-side paintings together that the point of the project started to become clear- and the response was amazing!! Think about it - all artists using the exact same elements and shaping those elements into completely unique and original pieces of art ...and they all started out as the same little painting:)

I want to give credit where credit is due-

Joszie Fazio, David Skybound Rosenak, my Facebook friends, Shawn-Todd OMalley, Michael Gaudet, and Deb McEachern all played an integral part in this project's development. [Others who have participated - Max Tzinman, Misha, Larry Cwik, Shawn Todd]

Several artists, including YOU, have since showed much interest and I see this as a positive way for us artists to come together without the pressures we normally face in the business world. It feels natural to play with a simple little chip just for kicks, and the side-by-side results are really amazing.

Above – By Max Tzinman

 

What type of digital art software do you recommend to participate in the Blue Chip Project?

 

If you have Photoshop- I have heard that Photoshop is BETTER than Corel Painter- I would take that little chip, convert it to bitmap, push the DPI up to 350, and use Photoshop to cut, paste or contort that chip how ever you want- you can add paint too- there are no rules.. I chose to stick with the data on the chip and work with it...but you can do anything you want to do.
When you've finished your painting, you can save the bitmap for your own file and for printing, and make a small version of it by converting to jpg after reducing size and DPI.

Left – By Nancy Corderman

 

All of my paintings are saved to CD and USB drive from their master bitmap form, and that way I will always have the original for print and reproduction.

 

If you are interested in participating in the Blue Chip Project, please visit her Facebook page Jo Corderman Art for details. The Blue Chip Project is featured in her Facebook albums.