The first time I saw one of Matthew’s pieces of fly art I was immediately taken aback. I noticed Thomas Harvey had a fantastic image of one of his flies posted on his Facebook page. It was the image you see right below this paragraph. Since then I have followed Matthew and the beautiful art he has been creating. Below Matthew informs us a little about himself and I have posted most of the fly art he has digitally painted so far. Sit back and enjoy the art!
I am currently a graphic designer for Winthrop University here in Rock Hill S.C.
I have always been a fisherman but not until about 2 years ago did I start tying my own flies as something to do during the down times when I could not fish. As I got more into tying I started to look through the web for inspiration for new fly patterns especially bass patterns since that is what I mostly fish for. I came across Thomas Harvey’s work and was blown away. His quality photographs of flies that looked like artwork kind of gave that lightbulb moment. So I started illustrating artistic looking flies. It was the art side of fly fishing and fly tying that has been so interesting to me as a creative.
I digitally paint my flies on a Mac using photoshop and a stylus pad. I always get asked did you paint those flies or use the computer. It is a tuff thing to explain to people I painted these flies on the computer. Digital painting has been around for a while. I think most people perceive digital painting as photo manipulation and there is a lot of that out there but that is not what I do. I use a stylus pad and use custom brushes to create my paintings. It is pretty much the same process as painting but on the computer and I post WIPS(Work In Progress) on my facebook and other social sites to show people I am not just pasting together photos but creating original works of art.
If you would like to contact Matthew for some fly art of your own, here is how you can contact him.
Matthew Cousineau
www.customflyart.com I am working on finishing this site by Wed of next week.
Facebook
Tumblr http://customflyart.tumblr.com/
and all my prints are available on DeviantArt
