The history of art dates back to the era of cavemen, who utilised the walls of their shelters to re-create objects they saw. Art has come a long way since, and Digital Canvas Painting is one of the latest forms of art in the modern aesthetic world.
An art director by profession, Janaka Illangarathne, is an enthusiastic young artist working in the medium of digital canvas paintings. “We know that humans used to live in caves, and had various tools and techniques for painting, such as clay, wood, metal, paper and canvas. With the advent of computer technology, the process of man’s creativity is being integrated into art in many different ways, bringing together various new dimensions. Digital Canvas Paintings are done using virtual paint brushes on the computer instead of tangible paints or brushes and are then printed on a canvas” Illangarathne said explaining the basics of digital canvas art.
Compared to some traditional forms of art such as oil paintings or acrylic paintings, digital canvas has certain advantages. Ability to undo things, use of different types of brushes, fine fabrication, convenience to make it more realistic, and making it easier to change colours after drawing are some of the leverage a digital canvas artist has.
Being an art director, creating conceptual visuals with the help of a computer is not something new to Illangarathne. However, his individual journey in the sphere of art began in his younger days with doodle art or Kurutu-bali.
“My school books had more Kurutu-Bali than notes” he laughed.
He has known since then that art is his passion and one day he will be an artist and earn his living. “School desk-tops became absolute works of art most of the time. In my free time, I used to draw many blurry frames. Then I wanted to make some of these hand drawn sketches in to a work of art using the virtual art space in the computer. When I was really in the first stage , I was able to feel something with its colours, so I made an art out of it by printing on a canvas. With all positive responses I received I kept on drawing the same object in many different ways” he said.
Doodle art is mostly ignored in the domain of other forms of art. It is a conceptual feeling that combines a choice of minds with its surroundings, Illangarathne believes. Even though doodles may not have meanings in the first place, when they are coloured and finalised, the artist can link things together, where ideas spring out ultimately. “I think some kind of concept comes into the doodle art from somewhere in the universe even though they are drawn out of nothing” he said.
However, Illangarathne has not restricted himself to only one medium. He thinks that the medium should be determined according to the concept.
“For instance, in 2014, I chose meat (flesh) as my medium of art. It was for an art festival called No More July which was held at the Vihara Maha Devi Open Air theatre addressing the issues of ethnicity (aggressive situation occurred in Aluthgama). My creation for that was an installation art exhibit titled Jaathi Mas, using different types of flesh” Janaka said.