Claudia again ventures beyond traditional watercolor art to delve even further into new technologies, specializing in digital work falling under the umbrella of new media art. By fusing hand illustration and style transfer techniques with digital editing to create 2-D art, her artwork seamlessly blends brand new, innovative technologies with traditional artistry, representing the convergence of past and present approaches. It offers viewers a glimpse into a world where creativity knows no boundaries, and traditional and contemporary approaches coexist harmoniously.

In the early 2000’s after taking several college computer science classes, Claudia began creating her art by painting digitally using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. She delighted in taking some of her older works and re-inventing them. By 2005, she was creating all her new artwork digitally. While many photographers edited their photos in photoshop, she did not know of any other artists creating their ‘fine art’ on a computer, at the time. She called her new art style Original Digital Images™, aka ODI’s.

This collection of Claudia’s paintings consisted of hand-painted artwork using water media on a variety of substrates including watercolor papers, clay-board, and even plexi-glass. Most pieces were cats, and a few were abstracts. This collection was large and diverse, and contained many of Claudia’s most popular pieces ever including Bootie, Catnip Sip, Holly Hula Cat, and Two Cats in Love.  

Claudia’s earliest paintings were executed using traditional hand-painting methods including paint brushes, palette knives, palettes, and water media paint on watercolor paper. The first year, she only painted abstracts. They often had metallic ink and paint features. In 1994, she experimented with subjects. She painted room interior scenes, building exteriors, cityscapes, and landscapes. She quickly found her favorite subject matter and true calling to be painting felines. She named her painting style ‘abstract realism’ because the cats looked almost real; their markings and eye colors remained true. But the cats themselves were brightly colored and abstract in nature. When compared to the next collection, these first pieces looked primitive.