Fairy art in ferry land

Willow DaNaan’s art prints – on view at Cafe Madison for the “Holiday Island Magic” Arts Walk Nov 4 – are images of the supernatural crafted with technical wizardry. This artist’s computer-generated prints feature three-dimensional fairies in Maxfield Parrish-like idealized landscapes.

Willow DaNaan’s art prints – on view at Cafe Madison for the “Holiday Island Magic” Arts Walk Nov 4 – are images of the supernatural crafted with technical wizardry.

This artist’s computer-generated prints feature three-dimensional fairies in Maxfield Parrish-like idealized landscapes.

“You have these beautiful fantasy characters that look like magic, but each takes hours to create,” DaNaan said. “I’Il start with a mega-skin texture in Photoshop and I’ll texture everything. It takes about 20 hours per image. Even the clothing is a three-dimensional object.”

DaNaan works in five different computer generated image (CGI) programs to arrive at a finished character.

“All the characters I create could be animated,” DaNaan said. “They could sing, walk, talk and dance if I chose to do that.”

As a woman artist, DaNaan is a minority in the male-dominated world of 3-D images and animation. DaNaan believes that CGI attracts more men than women because of the work’s mathematical component.

DaNaan’s delicate imagery stands out in relief against the legions of warriors and mythical monsters the men make.

DaNaan is also unusual because she combines features that don’t always co-exist in computer-oriented designers: technical savvy and fine arts training.

“I’ve been involved in different aspects of art since I was 10,” DaNaan said. “At the Art Institute of Dallas, I trained in different media, including ceramics, pastels and oil painting on canvas. I’ve done many different things, and that background does come into play in computer art.”

DaNaan grew up in Dallas and spent her whole adult life there, but when her son’s asthma necessitated a change of climate, she turned to the computer for direction.

An analysis of weather, crime, school scores and other statistics led her straight to Bainbridge.

DaNaan is not an artist-hustler, inflating minimal accomplishment for the marketplace; rather, she is a quiet and self-effacing artist of substance.

It wasn’t showmanship but word of mouth from other artists who had seen her work in software companies’ online “galleries” that led a New York Times reporter to include her in a piece this August that featured such animation luminaries as Steven Spielberg.

“I do a lot of online teaching,” DaNaan said. “My peers know me.”

The world that DaNaan has created beckons her; she imagines walking right into a digital print.

“Where would I like to be?” DaNaan said. “I might like to disappear into the stories I heard as a child.”

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DaNaan’s brand of magic can be found at Cafe Madison in the Pavilion for Arts Walk Nov 4, or at www.tempestuousarts.com.