|
When budding artist Smita Rao took a class in digital illustration 10 years ago, she intended to simply come away with a better understanding of the burgeoning digital world. She was, after all, a classically trained artist committed to producing landscapes. What Rao didn’t anticipate, however, was the intriguing challenge posed by her professor.
“He said, ‘You have fine arts training. Let’s see what you can do with a 21st-century tool and bring it to landscapes,’” recalls Rao, a bubbly woman whose warmth is palpable. “So I started working on that idea.”
As she pondered the possibilities, Rao took what she already knew well – drawing, watercolors and pastels – and searched for ways to manipulate them via the digital realm. What she came up with allowed her to start with a drawing or painting, which she then scanned into a computer. “I have used digital elements in a way that it doesn’t overpower you,” says Rao. “I wanted it to be a blend. I wanted to be honest to the landscape and all the emotion you feel when you look at one.”
The result is, indeed, more of an amalgam of the two mediums. Rao’s pieces incorporate elements from her drawing and painting, as well as photographs, but none exists totally in its original form. “I’ll integrate a photo somewhere,” she explains. “When I’m working on a piece, I might think of a picture I’d like to incorporate into it. Then, using the software, I can cut out a piece of it that I liked or place one behind the other or on top.” In “View from Plumstead,” Rao combines the pencil-and-ink drawings of her neighborhood with several photographs, blending and enhancing the layers digitally, and adding an airy, delicate feel.
Because they combine the traditional beauty of landscapes with modern technology, Rao’s mixed media techniques brought the shy, unassuming artist admirers from both sides of the artistic spectrum. She now shows her work in the Hoehne Clark Gallery in Doylestown, the Chestnut Hill Gallery in Philadelphia and the Radclyffe Gallery in New Hope. She’s also gearing up to exhibit her work at the Galaxy Arts Show in November at the Bucks County Courthouse.
And while it’s been a welcome boost to her career, Rao isn’t quite settled on creating exclusively in the digital world. Lately, she’s been hard at work on monotypes and printmaking, which have allowed her to return to her more traditional roots. When creating monotypes, she draws directly on a Plexiglas plate and then transfers the image onto a piece of paper using a printing press.
In her printmaking, Rao uses several different techniques, including dry point, where she’ll draw directly on a copperplate with a sharp stylus; and etching, in which she’ll ink a plate before placing it in a printing press with a sheet of paper that picks up the ink from the etched lines. “It’s very different from the digital,” says Rao, describing it as “a very painterly effect with soft tones.”
Still, no matter her medium, one thing that hasn’t changed is her subject: landscapes. Luckily, Bucks County is bursting with fresh possibilities for new work. “I’m never away from the process in my mind,” says Rao. “Even when I’m walking in the park, I’m thinking, ‘I hope I remember those colors, those lines.’ I’m very drawn by light and transparencies in color, like the layers you see when you look at the sky.”
Fittingly, Rao’s appreciation for the local landscape has grown to be an integral factor in her work, rivaling the myriad of techniques she uses. “When you look at something beautiful, you want everyone to feel the same way,” she says. “I hope everyone else is just as emotionally moved as I was in that moment.”
Go online at smitarao.com