In 1986 I painted my late dog "Rubah" as a final project for a Computer Image Course at UC Santa Barbara as an elective course along with under grad electrical engineering courses. I used a digitizer to digitally capture an old photo (at the time digital cameras were not easily located in grandmothers’ purses). Then I assigned different colors to different pixel types (B+W printers then used different alphabets and symbols to manipulate the dark and light). Starting with a heavy coat of paint I carved grooves into the background and applied paint according to the type of referencing pixel. For the next fifteen years I saved my idea with hopes that somehow and someday I would get around to it and expand on this idea.

 

Finally this year (2000) I have come to put together a version of this idea and have called it "DIGITAL ANTIQUITY". It contains a multimedia of plaster, acrylics and oils. Plaster is applied to gessoed birch panels and then carved. Several acrylic washes are then applied to the dried plaster. The dominant coverage of oil paints then takes place to test the ability to represent the relativity of hues

 

As series of studies, I started out with portraits of my wife "Natasha", self-portraits and then us together.

Then finally "The US Presidents" series was developed. This body of work was created with intent to raise public interest, to be educational and patriotic.

​