My foundation year in the late 80's was at a college that had a whole suite of BBC model B's, ( info here) pretty much the first computer I made any digital work on. To begin with I just drew from the sketchbooks I brought along, using the same method I'd come up with for painting, laying down shapes, overlaying them then reading through those to see what direction the composition was taking, what needed to be in front or behind, larger smaller, revelling in cut and paste and the brightness of the screen.
And doing primitive still capture using a video camera and importing those to work on directly
And cut and pasting those, compositing directly within the computer in a way I couldn't on canvas or paper.
To begin with the computer I worked at was the only one in the lab with a mouse.
Then the tutor suggested I print something out on an early colour inkjet printer. Which he had to start filling each time I came to the class. Then he showed me that you could rewind the paper to layer images over each other .
I started trying to see how far I could go with it. At the time the BBC ( i think) ran a series of programs called 'Painting with light' - as I remember it a series of artists like David Hockney were introduced to the Quantel paint box ( episode here) and invited to use it to make work - that program has always stayed with me It strikes me now that this wasn't painting with light but something different and new that needed to be seen on its own terms, with its own language.
These are the original printouts from 1987 - 88 , photographed in 2012.
