More about Fractal Media "Painter"

Excerpts from an article by John Derry, one of the Creators of Fractal Media

"It is only through disiplined experience with a creative medium that one comes to master personal expression. I can roll an orange on the black keys of a piano and make pretty sounds, but it may not be music"

   " My own schooling is in the traditional arts. I have both BFA and MFA degrees in drawing and painting, as well as a period of living as a "struggling artist" under my belt. This provides me with a strong grounding in traditional expressive media. I was heavily influenced by the Abstract Expressionist school, especially the work of Robert Rauchenberg and Jasper Johns. Both artists intermixed graphic imagery and expressionistic painting. As in their work, I employed a variety of techniques to incorporate existing images with my painting and drawing.

One of the phrases we use to describe what we do at Fractal is "capturing the human gesture for the purpose of creative personal expression". In its broadest sense, this is what Painter does.... We create instruments of expression... with this lies a deep respect for the traditions and techniques of creative mark-making tools. The way in which man makes marks with his hands to express himself has evolved over a great deal of time.

All art-making is wrapped up in creating a unique personal expression. A major challenge in working with expressive media is to take the same basic tools that have often been in use for centuries and arrive at a unique... personal statement. As both an artist and toolmaker, I find it particularly rewarding to be able to transfer this challenge inherently embodied in the use of the tools and extend it to the actual tool-making process.

A lot of the mark-making characteristics of stylus-based tools are imparted through the way an artist can adjust its angle and direction by wrist and finger motion...A pressure-sensitive stylus is the optimal form factor to correctly duplicate traditional mark-making instruments whose tip is the delivery mechanism for the marks it makes. (Like the graphite meeting paper, the bristle loaded with pigment and linseed oil meeting the canvas). A great deal of the subtlety imparted into an expressive line by an artist is due to the varying hand pressure applied as the line is rendered. Pressure-sensitive painting is only half of the story, however. Once the artist's gestural motion is captured, it needs to be interpreted and saved by a  recording device in this case, "Painter" software ...

Fractal Media's initial charter was to faithfully replicate, as closely as possible, the catalog of traditional mark-making instruments used for expressive purposes. (  charcoal , pastel , watercolor ,oil paint, scratchboard, gouache, pen and ink) .... Starting with the humble 2B lead pencil, Fractal Media has grown into an extensive collection of traditional mark-making tools recast into a digital medium. We use the term "Natural Media®" to refer to this technology. The library is by no means complete, but we continue to add to it with each new software release.

In recasting these tools into the digital realm.....all of the major forms of communications media are now digital-based. Natural media software extends the range of expressive human gesture directly into these pervasive communications forms.

If re-casting traditional mark making hand tools into digital equivalents were the sole charter of Fractal, my story would end here. But there is another core value we use to direct our efforts: Extend the range of expressive mark-making .... In other words, to be able to make marks that no other mark-making tool has made before. This is the area that is most tantalizing to me as a toolmaker...the possibility of being able to contribute to the pantheon of expressive mark-making tools used by artists.

Who do we make these tools for? How do we intend for them to be used? I said earlier that we are close cousins to musical instrument makers. I believe our mutual intent is similar with regard to whom we make these instruments for. We initially draw upon our own experience and expertise creating art and then strive to craft the best possible expressive tools that we can. After the tools are in use, our users become co-collaborators by providing us with feedback. Our users, as well as musical instrument users, constitute a wide talent range. And, like a musical instrument such as a guitar or piano, they can be used to create great works of art or absolute drivel.

This is not to say that these tools should not be available to the casual user or hobbyist. A great deal of satisfaction (and frustration) can be experienced through interaction with creative tools, even for a novice. But it is only through disiplined experience with a creative medium that one comes to master personal expression. I can roll an orange on the black keys of a piano and make pretty sounds, but it may not be music."