mark.rouse.ART

After years of studying, teaching and creating art, mostly acrylic paintings, I was diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy. 

I was pronounce legally blind!  

One of the things that I feared the most was that I would never paint again.  I started looking for a way to create, in spite of my diminished vision. This led to my current technique – a hybrid of traditional painting and digital assistance.  You see, I discovered that by hooking my computer up to my 55 inch TV I could zoom in and do my work.  

Now, my vision is back to normal.  With the help of a very good doctor and a couple miracles along the way, my vision was restored.  

My Method

Before my brush with blindness, my art focused on creating something new, something that no one had seen before.  Blindness caused my focus changed to painting the things that I might never see again.  My work since that time has been images from nature, my memories and images that proclaim my faith.

Each of my current works begins by painting water colors on an absorbent surface such as a wet paper towel.  This is a very soft image that resembles all I could see when I was blind.  After drying, the wash is scanned into my computer.  Using this as a background, I start building transparent digital layers in a manner similar to a traditional watercolor.  A typical painting will have 20 or more layers.  The final layer is the refining of the edges and the defining of the shapes and textures.  Each completed image is rendered as a Giclee on an archival backing of paper or canvas.