What is your tutor up to? Chapter 20: Jim Cowan

Presenting  – ‘Three New York Facades’.
Promoting your work as an artist and reaching out to an audience is all part of the artistic process – and that includes coming to terms with the Internet.
OCA students start their courses by creating a blog in which they can present their research, share images and express opinions. They can then continue onto student and social media sites such as Facebook and the OCA’s official discuss website where fellow students can critique their work and valuable information can be shared.
These days it is also necessary for tutors to have websites and while the appeal of a gallery exhibition might be paramount, showing your work on a digital platform is becoming increasingly important and can in some cases reach a greater number of viewers.
It is with this in mind that I decided to make a video of three of my paintings and present it on YouTube where it can have a wider audience. At the same time the work can be shared on Facebook, Instagram , Vimeo and  on other web sharing sites.
The three artworks in question had previously been shown individually in London gallery exhibitions but now I felt it was time to promote them in a different format.  While making the images I photographed the paintings at different stages . These photographs then became useful source material in order to keep track of the paintings development, allowing me to make alterations, if necessary, at a later date.
The use of Photoshop allowed me to crop, alter and manipulated the material and helped me to discover the final composition.  Structure and balance are important elements in the pictures while the combination of abstraction with representation is complimented by the use of a limited colour range.   
To produce the video I used iMovie, which facilitates the manipulation of images, text and music. Further experimentation in this direction might lead into different areas, but as it stands,  the completed video promotes the artwork and gives viewers an insight into the processes involved in making a painting. The work may not go viral, but it now exists in the digital world exhibited for everyone to see.