​2021 is not far away. Depending on the time lag, some countries are already approaching 2022. As I am posting this article, I also have to prepare for 2022. I hope that 2022 will be a more hopeful, bright and happy year for everyone.

  I read the article "Reasons for optimism after a difficult year", posted by Bill Gates on December 7th.  

  In his article, the passage “find a way to create new routines” catches my eye. We all acknowledge that we cannot easily go back to the pre-COVID-19. 

 Then, 2022 will be a year to think about how to create a new routine. As such, it seems that pandemic has changed and adapted to various life patterns. I personally did a lot of digital creations in 2021. And I started blogging, and it made me rethink the path I should take in my activities. And now I have to create a new routine in another challenge.

​   ​In the past, I have drawn the feeling and energy of the new year with acrylic paintings.

   It is a picture of three cranes flying vigorously through the sky. The sun burns brilliantly in the distance. The place in this picture is imaginary. I don't know where. However, three cranes are flying towards it. Closing a year like this and entering the next year is an attitude toward the unknown. I'm worried because I don't know, but I have hope and excitement that something good will happen. Uncertainty changes a lot. Pandemic is one of the factors in the unexpected uncertainty. Because of instability many predictions are poured out, and we face each day with anxiety and anticipation. Wouldn't it be great if we knew everything for sure? But if we know everything for sure, life itself may become meaningless.

 But there is one thing I want everyone to know. That is the end of the pandemic. Next year, I hope to hear the declaration of an end to the pandemic. And I hope you can get back to your daily routine in true freedom and safety.

  And I personally hope to visit art museums more freely and participate in offline exhibitions more often.

 Wishing everyone a happy, safe and healthy year!
 Wishing you the best of your life !!

   If you use Photoshop to create digital images, you will realize that graphic editors like Photoshop are also making progress. Photoshop is the complete image editing program we can find. Photoshop is now evolving by combining artificial intelligence functions. For example, a working environment known as a neural filter is six much more advanced "beta" filters that can handle all kinds of wonders, such as changing the facial features of an image. For example, the Smart Portrait Filter lets you close your eyes, change the direction of your gaze, move your head, and smile. 

 The realm that image editors such as Photoshop can show is already ahead of the human eye and visual domain.

  I also recently completed a digital image called "Return", a 2D digital image.

  Additionally I can look into this image three-dimensionally using the 3D Panorama function of Photoshop. 

  It is even surprising that it is possible to see three-dimensionally in this way. In this way, with the development of editors, creating digital images is more challenging and exciting.

 When I was in Germany, in Karlsruhe, the city where I lived, there was a famous modern video art museum called ZKM. It has always been a place to showcase the most current and enterprising art with the latest technology. I got used to go there often to see the exhibits. In particular, there were works by Nam June Paik, was a Korean American artist and a famous video art artist, so I often stopped by to get some motivation and ideas from his video arts. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use of the term "electronic superhighway" to describe the future of telecommunications.

 The peculiarity of his works is that many works embody a single object by connecting multiple televisions like this. A long time ago, Nam June Paik may have foreseen the media world like today. These genius pioneers are always ahead of their time. As if his prediction was correct, most video art now follows his way. Due to the technical limitations of that time, it could only be implemented with a television, so his works are gradually losing their light with the battery expiration. However, his ideas and creativity lead to one trend: video art.

  ​Showing like this means a lot. The artist who looked at the 3D world from the 2D world must have been frustrated with the limitations of the 2D material. Even in an era when it was not free to do simulations like now or freely co-work with people with new technologies, some people had such dreams.

I also draw to show the dream, but I am well aware that this is impossible in reality. So I think, ponder, and try little by little every day. It is as if a child is constantly thinking of play.

  St. Patrick's Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is the seat of the Archbishop of New York as well as a parish church. ​

  It is the largest cathedral in New York and the 11th largest in the world. It is located in 5th Ave, New York, NY 10022. It is a high ceiling gothic architecture made of granite with a Latin cross-shaped flat structure. It can accommodate up to about 3000 people. The archbishops of New York are buried in the basement of the cathedral. It was also the site of the funeral of the world-famous pop artist Andy Warhol.

 St. Patrick cathedral was built after 38 years of being modeled after Cologne Cathedral in Germany and finally began in 1850.

 ​Below are some photos I took during my 2013 trip to Cologne Cathedral, Germany.

  ​Comparing the photos of these two cathedrals, they seem to resemble each other but have a different atmosphere. I made this energy digitally.

  The process of creating the digital image of the cathedral above will be uploaded to the info menu on my website at a later date.

 ​The most impressive part of this tour of the cathedral is the digital offering machine below. You can donate easily by attaching a card terminal.

  ​When I go to Manhattan at this time of year, I always see the large Christmas tree in front of the Rockefeller Center. I couldn't go because of Corona, but I went in front of it for a long time and took pictures.

  ​I hope the corona will disappear soon and everything will be back to normal, so you can see this tree without any worries like before.

 Claude Monet (1840-1926), a representative Impressionist painter, traveled to find various landscapes, and in 1883 he settled in a small French village called Giverny. And for a whopping 43 years before his death, he planted flowers, built ponds in the yard of his house, and painted in his gardens in Giverny. A panoramic masterpiece called "Water Lilies" with a pond as the subject was created at this time. He says it took many years to understand water lilies and donated to France after his death.

We are likely to be sucked into a pond in the painting whenever we look at the pictures. I can feel his passion for trying to see the essence and beauty of objects, primarily through the angle of the pond. The pond looks flat at first but becomes steep as you go back. It is easy to see why by following the artist's eyes. In other words, it is because the beauty is captured from the angle of the eyes and mind, not the angle of the camera or lens.

  We don't just stare at one focus when we admire the beautiful scenery. We scatter the whole thing once with a panoramic view and organize it into one data. And we look for the attractive point again. And then, we give our definition of the beauty of objects. 

 ​The angle of looking at things in such a panoramic way and focusing on the beauty of that place is very impressive to me in his painting "Water lilies ."So whenever I visit an art gallery and encounter Monet's paintings, I always sit down and look at them slowly. Monet's paintings are a must-see while sitting in a chair. If you sit on a chair like this, you can enjoy the three-dimensional effect of the pond extending from the floor to a distant place. And you can get even closer to the beauty and ecstasy of every corner of the pond that Monet was trying to show you. It depicts how happy he must have been sitting in this pond in his later years.

  Whenever I drew a pond with digital art, something was disappointing with angles. That's the angle of the object. The angle of the lens does not perfectly follow the image. I want to catch the beauty of the pond and stare at the distant place that blends with it, but if I follow the camera lens, the beauty of the pond cannot be fully captured. In short, 2% is not enough. After pondering, I tried to capture the pond's beauty in my way, as shown below, through the photo-merge function of Photoshop. ​In this way, if I spread the view points in a panoramic way and merge them into one point, I can put a lot of things in the pond like Monet's pond.

  ​In the meantime, I pay tribute to the painter Monet, who discovered and realized the beauty of this pond repeatedly over the past 40 years and finally learned it and showed it to the world. Because of this devotion, we can see the beauty without efforts that this world cannot easily see. It seems like a cool thing. He was reluctant to show his pond paintings to his acquaintances, only drawing ponds for over 40 years. The reason is that it is still not perfect. We should try to get closer to his humility.

Later on, I will post the production process on my site info (tutorial) menu.

 Wishing everyone a warm, relaxing and happy  Christmas  surrounded by loved ones.