Traditional and Digital tools together are being used in collaboration in illustration today more than ever.
I’m bringing Muddy Colors an artist and gifted teacher who rides the waves of technology alongside traditional art making. Matthew Schenk is an artist and illustrator who has illustrated various projects from coloring books to medical illustrations. He spent ten years in Los Angeles, California working on productions for Sony Pictures/ Columbia Tristar Children’s Entertainment including the animated version of Jackie Chan Adventures, Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights, Men in Black, and Jumanji. Schenk resides in Grand Rapids, Michigan (His hometown) where he exhibits his fine art regularly.
Matt is one of the influential mentors along my journey in illustration and a core professor at my time at Kendall College of Art and Design. I’m pleased to share his work for the latest city-wide art event “Art Prize” and chat a touch about making art.
Art Tools
KIRBI: Matt, ever since I’ve known you, you’ve embraced technology in your work. Whatever tools were available to me in school, you encouraged me to try it. You are always the first artist I know to try new programs or tools. Can you tell me about embracing technology in your work? How has it changed over the years?
3d sculpture of Art Prize piece
This oil painting Matt painted during my time at KCAD—still one of my favorites.
MATT: As far as technology goes, I like all art tools. I like to play with them. I’ve always embraced them in my work. I started using Photoshop in the 90’s and have used it ever since. I guess it was inspired by artists like Dave Mckean and many of the DC comics vertigo artists back in the early days of computer illustration.
That being said, I still like using traditional materials as well. I do find them more satisfying because of the physical object left behind.
MATT: Over the years, I’ve combined the two quite often and the product of those combinations have been both digital and traditional work.
Mixing traditional and digital art tools
KIRBI: You were the first person I saw digitally painted on top of pictures of your oil paintings. It was a cornerstone moment for me.
You’re always reinventing the subject matter you are drawn to, and never boring yourself. I’ve seen you duplicate a traditional piece for the sake of experimentation. I’ve seen you take an element and take it further or rework it again as a new piece. Illustrators need to have that flexibility and long-standing enthusiasm for the work.
MATT: Because I teach and I don’t have to rely on a strictly confined product to sell, I am afforded the luxury of being able to play with whatever strikes my fancy at any given time. I feel like I am constantly experimenting. I think traditional inks and acrylic are next.
KIRBI: Your teachings on oils directly and seamlessly apply to how you teach digital painting. How does the Grisaille method inform you about digital painting?
Grisaille (from the french word Gris) method, for those who don’t know, is a painting method that begins with a monochromatic painting. Sometimes, artists will use faster drying paint to create the first stages of the painting and then apply glazes of color over and over again until the painting’s color palette is complete. It’s known for being highly realistic, especially in flesh.
Matt: I would tend to call it a monochromatic or achromatic approach. I like to use it when digitally painting because it allows me to separate value from color and handle them in order. When producing any piece, I consider the elements of art in order.
MATT: Line is what we use to create our thumbnails and rough shapes. I then arrange the Shapes into a coherent composition. Next I use Value to create volume in the shapes and direct the eye with a good value pattern. Texture is the detail on those basic shapes and values. And then last but not least, I use Color to enhance the picture and affect the mood. I teach my students to think of line, shape, value, texture and color in that order. For me, it works traditionally and digitally and allows me to get somewhat predictable results.
KIRBI: This way of thinking is still how I approach my work today. When I was in school Art Prize was just starting. Oh, the discussions we had in every class! It was a great time to be at the school. Of course, you encouraged us all to try it. This year you threw his hat in again, with another tra-digital piece.
KIRBI: Matt, as someone who deeply embraces new tech, like 3d printing. Can you share your thoughts on AI as it stands today?
Matt: Currently, I am opposed to AI. I know many artists whose livelihoods have been affected by AI. There are artists, every day, whose names are used for prompts thousands of times every day in image generators like Midjourney and others. Those bots were built on images scraped from the internet without consent and no artists were compensated for the work that was scraped. I have a huge problem with artists not being compensated. 
Kirbi: It cannot be overstated. I couldn’t agree more.
MATT: When Midjourney first came live, I played with it quite a bit until I realized how it worked and the potential for damage to artists that it has.
I am not necessarily against AI if it was built ethically by companies doing their due diligence of tracking down the authorship of the images used to train their bots and paying those makers. But, currently, that is not how it works.
Kirbi: For art students and illustrators just starting their careers with AI, what direction can you give them?
MATT: I would encourage my students not to use it when learning their craft because it is side-stepping the process of design and composition. If AI is creating the composition, they are not the authors of the work, and it does not help them develop as artists. At best, they are art directors in the process. At worst, they are image editors.
Kirbi: That’s the perfect language to describe it. Matt, thanks for chatting with me, sharing your work, and teaching me to paint with pixels.
For more on Matt:
“ArtPrize erupted on the scene in 2009, immediately establishing itself as a cultural phenomenon by grabbing the attention of artists and art critics around the world. From the beginning, it featured public voting, huge prizes, equally huge crowds, and a whole lot of engaging discussion. In 2010, ArtPrize introduced categories of juried awards, inviting international experts to bestow more honors. Anila Quayyum Agha’s piece “Intersections” made ArtPrize history in 2014 by winning Grand Prizes from both the public and a jury.”
Artist Statement For Matt’s Art Prize Piece:
Mictlantecuhtl – Facism Killed the Old Gods
In 1839 the late French painter Paul Delaroche was the first to say “painting is dead”. In 1915 Kasmir Malevich’s “Black Square” heralded the end of painting. The abstact expressionists told us that imagery in painting is over. There is talk of the Anti-aesthetic in Postmodernism. There is Post-Contemporary. There is Odd Nerdrum and Kitsch. There is constant debate on “What is Art” and what isn’t, who is an artist and who isn’t. The Art World separates itself from everyone else. There has been dialogue concerning the end of art and the loss of aesthetic import (Donald Kuspit) and art being replaced by “Postart” (Alan Kaprow). Art is over. 
I am making art in the Apocalypse.
Mictlantecutli or Mictlantecuhtli, meaning “Lord of Mictlan”, in Aztec mythology, is god of the dead and the King of Mictlan (Chicunauhmictlan), the lowest and northernmost section of the underworld. He is one of the principal gods of the Aztec’s and is the most prominent of several gods and goddesses of death and the underworld. Mictlantecutli and the old gods (in many civilizations and places in the world), dead, because of western imperialism and colonization. Having seized the Aztec Empire, Spain set about obliterating the Aztec capital’s major public buildings and the Aztec’ religion.
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