"Temple 1 Tikal" Artwork - Limited Edition of 10

Since retiring as an architect after four decades of practice, my creative energy has been directed to digital illustration. A passion for structures of any kind, world-wide travel, and over fifty years as a resident of New York City have resulted in a wealth of images for me to use as subject matter.

The classic method of making a drawing or a painting is to apply media to a surface. The media is layered onto that surface to eventually produce the final image. While offering the same additive process, digital illustration goes a step further to allow the reverse possibility, an image created by reduction. Starting with a digitized photo, I can distill the image to its essence by removing extraneous or unwanted parts. I can further simplify the remaining shapes and colors as necessary to add further impact to the final image.

I was introduced to digital illustration by Computer Aided Design applications that I first employed in my architectural practice. They were based on the creation of a virtual three-dimensional model of a proposed building that could then be viewed as if one were walking around and through the actual building. These “views or, snapshots” could then be edited with two-dimensional digital drawing tools to further enhance their image.

Digital photography has allowed me to assemble a vast hard drive library of places, people, and things that just caught my eye. However, organic forms, landscapes, and human beings were beyond the modelling capabilities of the architectural applications. I turned to the sophisticated two-dimensional application, Adobe Illustrator, to render that growing library of digital originals.

All digital photos are composed of individual tiny colored squares called pixels. The magical algorithms of Illustrator can transform those pixels into larger shapes called vectors. The vectors can then be reconfigured, combined, and recolored as needed to dramatize the original image. Unlike enlarged pixels which can become unfocused, vectors retain their sharpness whether the final image is produced on a poster or a postage stamp.

The hackneyed observation that “A picture is worth a thousand words” is remarkably accurate. Please take some time to view my full portfolio, and you will immediately understand the less than one thousand words I have devoted above to describe my process.

Larry Rachlin