This is a multi-part post based on my perspective of how digital advancement has changed some analog/traditional things. Here's Part 1 based on what I've noticed how people look at and react to Artwork these days.
Traditional Art
I grew up surrounded by art. I think I made this clear in a lot of posts prior to this. Among the most noticeable things in my house, are my Dad's paintings on the walls. His work is purely traditional - Oil on Canvas, and many many watercolor paintings. My sister too has quite a good eye with art and has made chalk pastels her specialty - another traditional medium. Now coming to me, I would consider myself a traditional artist in graphite drawing. I have some works posted here on my blog and on my deviantArt page. I'm a little new to the art scene as an artist, but definitely not from an observer's point of view.
Right, so I've been hanging around traditional paintings and drawings ever since I was a kid. Obviously I picked up on that, later than sooner, but I did. I must say I absolutely love traditional art. When I look at a drawing or painting on wall (even if not a realistic kind), it gives a sort of rush that I never feel looking at a gallery of photographs. I don't know why this happens, but it happens to me. So personally I put traditional art very high in my list.
Digital Art
Now, coming to the other side of debate. Digital Art. One of the first names that comes to mind when one says digital art is Photoshop. Yes, there are lots of other Digital Art software like, Corel Painter, Adobe Illustrator, etc. each unique in their purpose, but Photoshop really has become a household name unlike the others. "This image has been Photoshopped". How many times have we not heard that term? Photoshop has become an action word - a verb! Well I have been doing stuff on photoshop for quite a few years now, but recently found a whole new side I never knew existed despite being so familiar with the software.
What I'm talking about is that brush tool! No I don't mean the really complicated but beautiful brush sets painstakingly created by artists to make life easy for others, but the simplest round brush! Digital Art with a round brush? Had someone told this to me a couple of years ago, I would've laughed. But now, I own a Wacom tablet and I know what exactly a round brush can do. It can create wonders. I had almost never started any artwork on photoshop with a blank canvas. There was always an image and stuff got overlaid on top. But after acquiring the tablet, photoshop starts with a blank canvas and stuff gets painted on top! How awesome is that! Digital Painting is one of the most amazing things I've been lucky to learn and grasp. A big bow down to the awesomeness of Photoshop - my respect for it grew 10 fold after getting a Wacom. All this and after coming across some unbelievable concept art and beautiful renders purely painted with tablets, I must say I suddenly HAD to put digital painting very high in my list!
The Face-off
Let's breakdown the face-off into 3 parts again based on Effort, Feel and End Result.
Effort :
This is a category which is actually confusing to describe. Still, I shall try. Let us assume an example where I would like to paint a realistic portrait in both oil and digital media. Let us also assume that I'm skilled enough to create such a piece of work, which means I have the knowledge of colors, values, etc. So now the only difference is painting on a real canvas and painting on a digital canvas. What takes more effort? In Photoshop, I have a choice of millions of colors with unlimited supply, whereas I have a decent set of oil paints but to create more colors I'll have to start mixing and my color supply is limited. So mixing/creating colors requires some work in oils (or any such painting medium). My digital work has been painted in layers, so now I can individually alter a certain layer's (example background) colors, shapes, etc without affecting the rest of the painting. Obviously, I need to put in a lot of 'effort' to make such a simple change in the oil painting. Even if the digital painting was done on a single layer making major changes to colors, etc would not be as difficult as with oils. Moreover in PS, if I realized one eye turned out bigger than the other, I can quickly select the eye, reduce the size and patch up the area around the eye to blend it back in. If I had to do the same, I'd most probably have to repaint the entire eye with smaller dimensions and patch the area around anyway. So again digital painting has the advantage. Now to add details. PS has enough zoom levels to see each pixel, so we can literally add details the size of pixels. If the image is extremely high res, we can details which may not even be visible to the naked eye. But with traditional painting, I'd be limited by the size of the brush I have and I can't zoom in, so I'd have to be extremely careful while doing this work, in other words, more effort. So clearly, if I am well versed with a digital tablet in my hands, I'd find it far more easier to use and finish than a traditional medium, avoiding all the mess of colors and oils spilling, cleaning palettes, smelling like turpentine, setting up a workspace, lighting, etc. Digital Painting wins this round.
Feel :
If you try to convince a traditional artist to switch over to digital because it's faster, better, more efficient and takes less effort, he'd still be hesitant. Why would that be? It's simple, he wouldn't get the feel of doing the real thing. That's where digital art really loses out. Most tablets do not have a screen on them, so you're practically scratching a blank surface hoping for the right kind of line or shape appear on the screen. The feel of actually drawing that line isn't there. That problem is eliminated with a tablet that has a screen, but still doesn't feel like the real thing. You're trying to draw on a glass surface hoping to create something that looks like an oil painting or a pencil drawing. So to be clear, the feedback isn't completely realistic. A person used to the traditional ways would be reluctant to switch over. Traditional media win this round.
End Result :
A lot of people may not bother to find out how you did it, but what you did. So the end result is pretty important. The advantage of digital art is, you can create a piece that resembles any traditional medium quite accurately. So if you'd print a nicely simulated digital work onto a canvas, most people would be convinced it's an oil painting. What's the fun in that? I don't know. But if you wanted to create a digital painting to look like an oil painting or even a pencil drawing for that matter, you'd be able to do it. The reverse is not possible though.
Conclusion:
So what medium is better? Well, my analysis says digital has quite a few advantages over traditional, but in the end, the opinion is of each individual artist. If you've always liked drawing with real pencils and would like to continue doing that, nothing's more awesome. If you're a beginner and would like to see which medium seems easier to grasp, you can use some of the points above to help you decide. If you've heard a lot about digital art but never understood why it is so popular, especially with concept artists and illustrators, again the above points may help.
As far as my personal opinion goes, I've found switching between digital and traditional now and then actually helps me look at things in a fresh way, so I've shamelessly married myself to both media and wouldn't be ready to let go of either any time soon.
Traditional Art
I grew up surrounded by art. I think I made this clear in a lot of posts prior to this. Among the most noticeable things in my house, are my Dad's paintings on the walls. His work is purely traditional - Oil on Canvas, and many many watercolor paintings. My sister too has quite a good eye with art and has made chalk pastels her specialty - another traditional medium. Now coming to me, I would consider myself a traditional artist in graphite drawing. I have some works posted here on my blog and on my deviantArt page. I'm a little new to the art scene as an artist, but definitely not from an observer's point of view.
Right, so I've been hanging around traditional paintings and drawings ever since I was a kid. Obviously I picked up on that, later than sooner, but I did. I must say I absolutely love traditional art. When I look at a drawing or painting on wall (even if not a realistic kind), it gives a sort of rush that I never feel looking at a gallery of photographs. I don't know why this happens, but it happens to me. So personally I put traditional art very high in my list.
Digital Art
Now, coming to the other side of debate. Digital Art. One of the first names that comes to mind when one says digital art is Photoshop. Yes, there are lots of other Digital Art software like, Corel Painter, Adobe Illustrator, etc. each unique in their purpose, but Photoshop really has become a household name unlike the others. "This image has been Photoshopped". How many times have we not heard that term? Photoshop has become an action word - a verb! Well I have been doing stuff on photoshop for quite a few years now, but recently found a whole new side I never knew existed despite being so familiar with the software.
What I'm talking about is that brush tool! No I don't mean the really complicated but beautiful brush sets painstakingly created by artists to make life easy for others, but the simplest round brush! Digital Art with a round brush? Had someone told this to me a couple of years ago, I would've laughed. But now, I own a Wacom tablet and I know what exactly a round brush can do. It can create wonders. I had almost never started any artwork on photoshop with a blank canvas. There was always an image and stuff got overlaid on top. But after acquiring the tablet, photoshop starts with a blank canvas and stuff gets painted on top! How awesome is that! Digital Painting is one of the most amazing things I've been lucky to learn and grasp. A big bow down to the awesomeness of Photoshop - my respect for it grew 10 fold after getting a Wacom. All this and after coming across some unbelievable concept art and beautiful renders purely painted with tablets, I must say I suddenly HAD to put digital painting very high in my list!
The Face-off
Let's breakdown the face-off into 3 parts again based on Effort, Feel and End Result.
Effort :
This is a category which is actually confusing to describe. Still, I shall try. Let us assume an example where I would like to paint a realistic portrait in both oil and digital media. Let us also assume that I'm skilled enough to create such a piece of work, which means I have the knowledge of colors, values, etc. So now the only difference is painting on a real canvas and painting on a digital canvas. What takes more effort? In Photoshop, I have a choice of millions of colors with unlimited supply, whereas I have a decent set of oil paints but to create more colors I'll have to start mixing and my color supply is limited. So mixing/creating colors requires some work in oils (or any such painting medium). My digital work has been painted in layers, so now I can individually alter a certain layer's (example background) colors, shapes, etc without affecting the rest of the painting. Obviously, I need to put in a lot of 'effort' to make such a simple change in the oil painting. Even if the digital painting was done on a single layer making major changes to colors, etc would not be as difficult as with oils. Moreover in PS, if I realized one eye turned out bigger than the other, I can quickly select the eye, reduce the size and patch up the area around the eye to blend it back in. If I had to do the same, I'd most probably have to repaint the entire eye with smaller dimensions and patch the area around anyway. So again digital painting has the advantage. Now to add details. PS has enough zoom levels to see each pixel, so we can literally add details the size of pixels. If the image is extremely high res, we can details which may not even be visible to the naked eye. But with traditional painting, I'd be limited by the size of the brush I have and I can't zoom in, so I'd have to be extremely careful while doing this work, in other words, more effort. So clearly, if I am well versed with a digital tablet in my hands, I'd find it far more easier to use and finish than a traditional medium, avoiding all the mess of colors and oils spilling, cleaning palettes, smelling like turpentine, setting up a workspace, lighting, etc. Digital Painting wins this round.
Feel :
If you try to convince a traditional artist to switch over to digital because it's faster, better, more efficient and takes less effort, he'd still be hesitant. Why would that be? It's simple, he wouldn't get the feel of doing the real thing. That's where digital art really loses out. Most tablets do not have a screen on them, so you're practically scratching a blank surface hoping for the right kind of line or shape appear on the screen. The feel of actually drawing that line isn't there. That problem is eliminated with a tablet that has a screen, but still doesn't feel like the real thing. You're trying to draw on a glass surface hoping to create something that looks like an oil painting or a pencil drawing. So to be clear, the feedback isn't completely realistic. A person used to the traditional ways would be reluctant to switch over. Traditional media win this round.
End Result :
A lot of people may not bother to find out how you did it, but what you did. So the end result is pretty important. The advantage of digital art is, you can create a piece that resembles any traditional medium quite accurately. So if you'd print a nicely simulated digital work onto a canvas, most people would be convinced it's an oil painting. What's the fun in that? I don't know. But if you wanted to create a digital painting to look like an oil painting or even a pencil drawing for that matter, you'd be able to do it. The reverse is not possible though.
Conclusion:
So what medium is better? Well, my analysis says digital has quite a few advantages over traditional, but in the end, the opinion is of each individual artist. If you've always liked drawing with real pencils and would like to continue doing that, nothing's more awesome. If you're a beginner and would like to see which medium seems easier to grasp, you can use some of the points above to help you decide. If you've heard a lot about digital art but never understood why it is so popular, especially with concept artists and illustrators, again the above points may help.
As far as my personal opinion goes, I've found switching between digital and traditional now and then actually helps me look at things in a fresh way, so I've shamelessly married myself to both media and wouldn't be ready to let go of either any time soon.
