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To date, MetroMac Express articles have mostly talked about tools.

We review, explain and offer opinions on hardware, peripherals, networks, connectivity, applications, plug-ins, storage, productivity – all the stuff that gives you the ability to create: the Means to an End.

Now we'd like to hear about the End. What do you do with all these great toys?

With this issue, we start new feature: How I Did It: a Mac Showcase. We invite you to send us a sample of your work, plus a few words about how you did it. There are no limits to the kind of work you can submit: illustration, graphics, logo design, typography, fine art, maps, patterns, cartoons, 3D, animated sequences. . .

But not only visual stuff. How about the tune you wrote, using a composition program? The sharply-targeted internet research project you launched via boolean descriptors? How you got your Website picked up by all the search engines? Your special insight into successful selling on eBay? Your college research program using a large array of computers? Little-known Mac features you've discovered by accident, and how they led to love, wealth and longevity? Whatever. Send it in.

And now to our first entry.

With this issue,

we start a new feature:

How I Did It: A Mac

Showcase. We invite

you to send us

a sample of your work,

plus a few words

about how you did it.

Ted Knerr's training in mechanical engineering and industrial design brought him in the '60's to New York, where he worked at ID, packaging, exhibit design and graphics. Following an interest in serious art, he also worked at, and taught, painting and sculpture, and has been in many one-man and group shows. He began using the Mac for industrial design assignments in 1990, finally quitting in 1995 to work full time as an artist. He bought an iMac in 1998, shortly produced his first print, and published his website a year later.

Below are six recent typical pieces done on his G4 eMac, OS 10.2.8. His comments follow.

These images were all made with CorelDraw 10. I've been using this app since 1998 and am very comfortable with its range of expression.

At first I feared it might limit the freedom I was used to as a painter, and feel too "machine made." It actually opened up whole new avenues that might never have occurred to me using acrylics or watercolor. In fact, some of these possibilities have even filtered back into my traditional paintings, so it's been a win/win situation.

For my prints, I mostly use Corel's vector-based tools, which lend themselves well to hard-edge abstraction. (I use the pixel-based paint program only for photo work.)

I try to avoid preconceptions of how a piece will look. I start with an idea and see where it takes me. The result usually surprises me. It may take a while for me to 'get' it, but some kind of enlightenment shines through in the process.

Although I often use rough sketches in starting a watercolor or canvas, I have never felt the need for these in computer art, since changes are so easy at every step. I start right in on the blank screen, allowing lines, forms and colors to grow and change intuitively and trying to keep conscious control out of the process. Matisse said it best: “When I am submissive and modest, I [can] do things of which I am not capable. All art… is [spiritual... or] it is nothing. . ."

While I’m a big fan of the computer as an art tool, I’m wary of letting it take over. I don’t like features that produce glib stylizations such as "impressionist" and "pointillist" filters, which always look fake. But I do appreciate such options as the transforming and organizing tools, blending objects, the wide range and flexibility of Corel’s fills and its easy compatibility with the bitmap program.

Another benefit of the computer is economic; I can inexpensively produce archival prints that I can sell for less than one-of-a-kind artworks. I do encounter some prejudice among traditional-minded art lovers, but I explain that the computer is only a tool. Like a brush or pencil, it needs to be used properly, so the artist is free to let inspiration control the work.

I’m far from an expert and am open to exploring new methods. I would especially welcome suggestions as to color management in translating screen images to archival prints, and to online versions for my website. My present trial and error corrections are very labor intensive. Learning never ends.

To see more of Ted Knerr's art and that of his friends, visit his website at http://www.art-spirit.net.

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