UnitCare Services Digital Media Award Entry, SALA 2022

‘Renaissance drawing in the digital age’, Digital Media project submission by Rowan Dodds

This project is a series of digital images, along with the new digital tools developed for their creation.

The project was created using meticulous, high-resolution digital recreations of the tools and papers of the Old Masters including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti, developed by the artist to match high-resolution scans of the Old Masters’ originals from collections worldwide including the Met, the Lourve and the British Royal Collection, combined with tool handling data from physical recreations of the tools using the methods of specialist art historians, to ensure the digital tools perform and feel just as the original Old Masters’ tools would have.

The series includes both digital recreations of the work of the Old Masters, as well as unique digital works of the artist, created in response to our shared challenges of recent years.

[please note: if a digital media project consisting of multiple images is not acceptable, please accept the first image, and if possible the tool development information at the base of this page as my submission]

‘Cellini vs daVinci’, a unique study of Gaetano Cellini’s marble sculpture ‘Humanity against Evil’, drawn digitally using the artist’s high-resolution digital recreations of the chalks and papers of Leonardo da Vinci.
‘Connection’, a meditation by the artist on the personal and familial costs of the pandemic, drawn with the artist’s high-resolution digital recreations of the chalks and papers of Leonardo da Vinci.
Recreation of Michelangelo’s ‘Study for the Libyan Sibyl’ created using the artists digital recreations of Michelangelo’s drawing tools on a scan of toned 16thC Italian paper.
‘Da Vinci’s Spine’, a recreation of Leonardo da Vinci’s spine study and notes, drawn digitally using the artist’s recreations of the quills & inks of Leonardo da Vinci on a high resolution scan of 16thC Italian paper.
Recreation of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Vitruvian Man’ created using the artists digital recreations of da Vinci’s quills & inks on a scan of toned 16thC Italian paper.

Digital tool development process

The Old Masters’ traditional tools were recreated using authentic methods from specialist art historians.
The tool recreations were thoroughly tested and combined with study of high resolution scans of the Old Masters’ original artwork to develop the tools digital twins.
To create the high resolution digital antique papers, the original artwork is delicately removed to reveal the original parchment or paper beneath, complete with imperfections and age marks.
Finally the tools were tested side by side against the Old Masters originals for accuracy, before recreations and original pieces were created by the artist.

Now that the digital tool recreations have been developed they are available for other artists to use as well, to capture the experience of using the drawing tools of the Old Masters and keep their tools, methods and techniques alive for the future.

To future-proof these digital tool recreations, they were created to be accurate at extreme resolution of up to 5200dpi (64x zoom on standard image resolution) allowing for both highly detailed recreations as well as large scale enlargements.

The digital Old Masters tool recreations developed during this project are available for trial and review by the judges, or any other interested parties, and I look forward to any opportunity to demonstrate them either at my Modbury North studio, or bringing them with me on a digital tablet to a more convenient location. Please email me at dodds@inksplat.net to arrange this as I would greatly enjoy the opportunity to share and connect.

Thank you for your time and consideration,
Rowan Dodds.