Alchemy
Lisle Drake
The Elements of My Thoughts Are the Alchemy of My Dreams

(1 of 10)

Lisle Drake resides in the Hill Country of Texas. She writes, "Alchemy is the art of transformation of base elements into precious new forms, and each of my works represents one aspect or another of that magical art... I've been an artist all my adult life, working in a wide range of media from pen and ink on paper to batik and other techniques on fabric. I've been using the computer as both a tool and medium since my first 128K Mac Classic in 1985. I get most of my ideas through dreams, and my dreams tend to run in series, sometimes over many years. Each time a dream occurs I find something new in the dream and I spend lots of time capturing these memories either on paper or working directly in the machine. These memories, which fill hundreds of sketch books and computer files, are the raw material from which my finished works are made.

"I work principally with Photoshop, Painter and Illustrator, and my input devices are a high resolution scanner and a Wacom tablet. As I begin work on a new piece I make decisions about which elements are already in my archives and which will have to be created new. If new elements have to be created I might sketch the piece on paper and scan it in, or I might begin working in a Painter or Illustrator file using my Wacom tablet, or I might grab an old digital file and begin manipulating the element directly in Photoshop." This is an art both wondrous and gloriously playful.