Tag: Assignment

Digital Filters & Syntax Forms: Visual Experiments from 2019–2025

Digital Filters & Syntax Forms: Visual Experiments from 2019–2025

***I recently published a new blog post on my main site that showcases a body of digital illustrations created between 2019–2025. These works emerged from teaching sessions, daily experiments, and ongoing studio play. They explore the relationship between analog marks and digital transformations, filtering, bending, glitching, and compositing with layered tools and apps. The result is a vibrant series of portraits and abstractions that reveal how our creative processes are evolving alongside the technology we carry in our pockets.

As you explore the visuals and narrative, take note of the hybrid process, how drawings, sculptures, and design sketches can morph into completely new digital works through a multi-platform creative workflow. Then, you’ll take on the assignment prompt at the bottom of the post below!

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This newly resurfaced series of digital illustrations spans a transformative period from 2019 to 2022 (but I added a piece from 2025 too) a stretch of time marked by constant teaching, ongoing experimentation, and the subtle blending of analog intuition with evolving digital tools. Many of these pieces were created live during class demonstrations, quickly composed to illustrate technical skills, yet unconsciously embedded with deeper currents of form, rhythm, and future direction. What began as spontaneous visual riffs soon became syntax carriers, vessels for line, color, and glitch-based logic that I would later expand into more intentional works.

Each piece was created intuitively, emerging from the moment rather than any predefined plan. Many are derived from my own hand-drawn sketches, paintings, or prior illustrations—while others pull directly from 3D paper sculpture maquettes that I scanned, photographed, or digitally reassembled. The digital environment allowed these forms to shift, distort, and transform as data bending, glitch renderings, and filter experimentation introduced unexpected visual mutations. These glitches became collaborators, not errors, an essential part of the language forming within the work.

Across this body of work, we see a layered interplay between traditional design principles and raw digital texture, pixelation, compression, AI distortion, vector smoothness, and painterly overlays. Some forms hint at architecture, others at human silhouettes or mechanical beings. Several works appear fragmented, paused mid-sentence. Others pulse with 3D illusion, nostalgic halftones, or faux-physical layering. Together, they chart the growth of a digital aesthetic language that has since matured into recent projects like the JFK mural, sculptural commissions, and augmented reality filters.

Revisiting this series now not only shows me where I’ve been, it reminds me of how teaching and making often become one. These pieces are a kind of visual byproduct of instruction, yet they stand alone as artworks with their own voice and vibrational frequency. They feel like early mutations of what is now my more developed style, still experimental, still unconcerned with rules, but rooted in intention and momentum. They are syntax loops from a moment of visual evolution. They continue to speak, even now.

Yes, that is a portrait of Kurt Schwitters above, he continues to be an artistic inspiration of mine!

As I reviewed this group of works again in the process of formatting them for this post, one detail stood out immediately: the prominence of portraiture. Whether abstracted, distorted, or fully symbolic, the human face, or the suggestion of it emerges as a recurring thread throughout the entire collection. This fascination with portraiture has long held my interest. It serves as a portal to identity, emotion, memory, and communication across time. Even when the face is fractured or obscured, it remains a central force, inviting interpretation, reflection, and story.

Each piece shares a common pipeline of creation. The process almost always begins with drawing, painting, collage, or physical sculpture often quick gestures or maquettes that capture a moment of form. I document these raw pieces by photographing them on my phone, and then I bring them through a series of mobile apps where filters, color palettes, and digital layering tools introduce new aesthetic directions. From there, some works are refined further in Adobe Illustrator for vector treatments, then routed into Photoshop for deeper manipulations, before being exported back to mobile for additional filtering or glitch-based experimentation. It’s an open loop, nonlinear, playful, and deeply intuitive.

What excites me about this workflow is how it accommodates mobility. I often find myself editing in transit—on the subway, walking through airports, or sitting in cafés, engaged in a fluid creative dialogue between analog marks and digital alchemy. This rhythm says something larger about contemporary creativity and our emerging relationship with tools in this technological renaissance. We carry powerful studios in our pockets, and the line between artist and interface becomes increasingly blurred. These works are evidence of that evolution, a set of portraits not just of subjects, but of process itself.

Altogether, this series stands as a visual meditation on transformation of media, memory, and method. What began as tactile marks or sculptural forms evolved through digital touch-points into layered visual stories, each piece a hybrid echo of both hand and machine. The portraits reveal not only imagined characters or archetypes, but also my own evolving language as an artist navigating the space between traditional practice and emergent technology. In sharing these works now, I’m not only documenting a timeline of experimentation but also inviting others to see how accessible and open this kind of creative flow can be.

The archive expands, and with it, the conversation continues.

 

LETS MAKE SOME ART!

STUDENT PROJECT: “Analog to Digital – Portrait Filters & Forms”

  1. Create a portrait-based drawing, collage, sculpture maquette, or even a quick sketch (physical or digital).

  2. Document it with a photo using your phone.

  3. Transform the image by running it through at least three different mobile apps or software tools (e.g., Glitché, Procreate, Snapseed, Adobe Fresco, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.).

  4. Layer, bend, glitch, filter, remix — play with form, color, and abstraction. Push it far.

  5. Present your final image along with a short paragraph describing your process and what surprised you along the way.

  6. Publish your work on a class blog (or otherness) and share the URL in the comments section!

Bonus: Compare your original and final image side by side in the same post to show your transformation pipeline.

Assignment – The Keeper of Crossroads – Reimagining Analog & Digital Fusion

A Reimagined Analog and Digital Fusion image of abstract shapes and forms composed in harmony - values of reds, blues, oranges and yeloows are presentAssignment Title: Keeper of Crossroads – Reimagining Analog and Digital Fusion

Assignment Introduction:

Every so often, an artwork finds a way to call itself back into your life.

While traveling and reflecting on a new chapter of growth, I stumbled across an image from my archive, a digital illustration I originally created back in 2013. I had almost forgotten about it, but somehow, it kept resurfacing, almost demanding my attention. The artwork, which I now call Keeper of Crossroads, started as a physical cut paper collage, full of bold shapes, raw energy, no rules, just pure intuition, forms, and color.

After scanning or photographing the original, I spent hours playing with it digitally. I intentionally “degenerated” the resolution in Photoshop, pushing it into that gritty world I loved so much, the feeling of vintage offset lithography from the 1960s–80s, like the textures you find in old comics and mass-printed magazines.

At the time, I was simply following my curiosity. I didn’t realize I was making something that would eventually feel like a visual prophecy. Now, more than a decade later, I recognize this piece as a fusion of timelines, mediums, and energies, a symbol bridging the analog and the digital, the remembered and the reimagined.

 

It feels only right to now turn this discovery into an invitation for you to create your own “Keeper of Crossroads.”

 

The Assignment Prompt:

  1. Create a piece of digital artwork that begins from a physical, hands-on medium (for example: a collage, a drawing, a painting, a sculpture, even a rough paper cutout).

2. Then, digitize your piece — either by scanning, photographing, or documenting it with your phone.

3. Once digitized, use Photoshop (or a digital app of your choice) to “degenerate” and transform it.

Play with resolution changes, filters, color distortions, and texture overlays. Let the imperfections guide you. The goal is not to polish the image — the goal is to merge the analog spirit with digital experimentation. Let the unexpected surprises that happen through the process become part of the final piece’s story.

 

What to Submit:

•A digital version of your final artwork (JPEG or PNG format preferred).

•2–3 sentences reflecting on the process.

 

Some questions you can answer:

•What was your physical starting point?

•What surprised you when you moved into the digital world?

•How did it feel to let go of “perfect” and embrace imperfection?

 

Optional Bonus:

Share a side-by-side image showing your original physical piece and the final digital piece.

Have Fun!

Xeroxed (A Metaphoric Looping Confrontation) The Explanation Post

digital photocopies, on loop as an animated GIF

Xeroxed, (A Metaphoric Looping Confrontation..) The Explanation Post

2020, animated GIF, blog post excerpt, full browser page GIF and video embed.

Welcome back, if you previously had an intervention with this blog post then you know that it will have rolled you to a full screen version of the animation looping in the browser window. All that the unsuspecting viewer was able to see was a “preview” of the blog post that appears in the blog roll section of the home page, or on the blog page itself. The preview of the post was hopefully engaging enough to lure you in. If you clicked on the preview it would redirect to the actual information in the post, but that never happens, you are taken directly to the looping action itself. A forever looping Xerox photo copy of a blank page…

(PS – you can revisit that simulation here – Click Here <– or Below to View the full Web Browser Page Variation of Xeroxed)

Lets talk context. A photocopy machine produces an endless series of copies.. Our brain responds to several aspects of what we see. It is enough information for us to reflect upon having the experience before… When the ink toner begins to run low it starts to produce degenerated copies. This effects the image and the ability to communicate its message(s).

This animated piece of Internet / Web Browser codependent art is digital and paperless. It is a paperless looping series of repetition to activate your self awareness…. ah the metaphors… a metaphor and an indicator of behaviors. What loops are you facing in your life that you walk right into over and over producing the same results.. the results that get a bit more degenerated each time we become aware that we are in the loop? Below is a screen shot from the previous “page” which is actually a page. I used a snippet of CSS using the page ID # to redirect the URL once the preview of the post in disguise was clicked on – the code is below.

.page-id-20721 #main-header { display:none; }
.page-id-20721 #page-container {
padding-top:0px !important}

Your Assignment: Create a visual metaphor that applies the idea of “redirection” as a concept that can function as a static or looping image to extend its meaning. The final outcome must be shared via an active URL.

 

 

Metaphoric Narratives with the Nature of Nature

Metaphoric Narratives with the Nature of Nature

2020/2021 Digital Illustration

Aaaaand we are back with another series of digital art works and a bit of a “how to” process post. Forgive me for the title of this blog post.. At first, I wasn’t sure if this was going to be an assignment tutorial of some kind, or just an over-sharing process and rambling session. It will serve as all of the above. Ok, so, lets face it, we all love photoshop. We all love the pen-tool and the ability to cut, create, apply and remix images with our graphic assets. Yes? Of course! OK OK, Ill get down to brass tacks already.. In this series I wanted to create and play with some fictional characters and also displace them into my everyday surroundings. It is in this process of being experimental that new narratives seem to poke at and guide us. Lets jump in. Of course I am sharing this process from the perspective of my own art making but also will use the steps to illustrate a class assignment for my foundation design and digital storytelling students. The ability to create well balanced and compelling compositions is skill set that is fun to cultivate and it never gets old. “Let’s always be practicing”, practicing  the ability to compose and create while mastering the dimensions of our picture plane. (that academic jargon…)

 

The gang is all here.. This example shares an integration of characters and the ability to use repetition, duplicates and scale (plus those shadows…). I love walking past the Brooklyn Museum in my neighborhood. I love the building itself and wanted to use it as one of the locations for this new “situation” to occur..

 

This image was taken outside of the Brooklyn Public Library, it shares a series of imagery and the application of a character. Our hero has found itself as a part of public advertisement. Perhaps this is fictional? OK, it is, but think about how your everyday surroundings may offer an opportunity for you to intervene, hack, displace and re-contextualize things. There is beauty in the seemingly banal or redundant, and what I mean by this is our everyday surroundings. We have the power to transform and transcend them. Visual imagery and image-making is a fun way to participate and also see the world in a new way.

 

By default, your friends are going to show up! Another example of repetition, composition and scale variation. Does this illustration tell a more compelling story than the image above it? Are the additional plants needed? What do they add to the composition and story? What is their intention here? Will they expand and take over? Well…

 

Above, is the original image that I took at Prospect Park that inspired the entirety of this series. (Im back tracking the narrative of this post a bit… just like in the Film “Pulp Fiction”… haha, not exactly but Im thinking about that..) The algae was really think and particularly a warmer value of saturated green than I recalled from most visits to this spot. It was also late July and pretty warm outside. Sometimes all it takes is one experience, story or image that causes the creativity trigger. After I took the picture I immediately reflected upon a memory of the 1980s film “Swamp Thing”.. are you old enough to remember that movie? Lol, I was just a kid when it came out but I loved it! So, I got inspired, fast! The image below was the first iteration beyond the “normal” picture that I took. But there is more to this puzzle below..

 

Sooo, you recognize the image below.. that is where the plant came from. Its one of the 5 plants (and growing) that I take care of..(its much bigger now as I write this a few months later too). Im illustrating all of this to help give you a bit of insight into the immediate and very intuitive thinking and creation process that I go through. I like the immediacy of using my own surrounds and digital image captures. This can all be so easily synced with other forms of media found in the public domain or via other creative commons resources. Plus, I experience the process as a muscle, it wants to be exercised, nurtured and practiced. It wants to grow!

 

I brought the image into photoshop and used the pen tool to cut it out. Once I had it free as an asset I started constructing my character. The figure was extracted from a painting found in the MET Museums Digital Open Access Image Archive of public domain works. There is a lot of good stuff there!

 

OK, so this fellow is NOT exactly “Swamp Thing” but it certainly expressed that energy and inspired the flow of the illustrations. I animated this guy below and also added it as a sticker on Instagram. If you use Instagram Stories, under the GIF search option you can put in my name (ryan seslow) and find this guy below… use it at will! There are some some others there too 🙂

Well, one idea leads to another and I kept going.. this is another character and asset above. The static image wanted to be added to a narrative and that narrative became a looping animated GIF. Its a short surreal story, and it was fun to make…

 

The Assignment Details:

Simply: Using this post as your inspiration, dig into your intuition and creative impulses and create a fun hybrid character that you can interject or displace into a narrative using your familiar surrounds.

Have fun and be sure to share your work here!