What is Digital Art?

Digital Art

Work in Progress of Oscar

Painting of my cat Oscar

 So what is digital art really? According to wikipedia, Digital Art can be defined as any art that is made with the help of a computer. Drawings made on paper that are scanned in and changed in any way on the computer, photographs that are modified, 3D characters created using a computer are all examples of digital art. There are so many misunderstandings surrounding digital art, that in most circles, it isn’t even really taken seriously. This is a really sad situation. Most people think of photoshop filters when they think of digital art. They think of photo manipulation or that  someone puts a few photo color filters on and they are done. This isn’t true and even good photo manipulation can be an art form. There are many great artists on Fine Art America that use photo manipulation to a great end. They are usually photographers, but not always. 

     Then there is digital painting. Digital painting is basically painting using a stylus or mouse and creating the brush strokes on either a tablet or in the computer. There are even tablets to plug into the computer to make the painting process a little easier and more intuitive. Don’t get me wrong though, there is a learning curve when painting digitally, even when the artist may be an accomplished painter in traditional media.

Digital painting is an amazing art form and many effects can be achieved through it. Unlike in photo manipulation, digital painting starts out with a blank, digital canvas just as a traditional painter would. The digital artist builds up layers of color and digital paint to achieve the same thing any traditional painter would, a work of art. It may take less time to create, which is an argument of many traditional painters, but that is just because the digital painter doesn’t have any drying  or wait times. Most of my paintings take 10-15 hours to complete and sometimes more. I notice the better I get, the longer a painting takes. The following painting of "The Duel" took about 15 hours.

The Duel

 

 A digital artist and traditional artist are very similar. While an oil painter uses canvas and oil paints to make their art, a digital artist uses a digital canvas and pixels for paint to create theirs. Not one is better than the other, they are just different forms of art and each takes a unique set of knowledge and talent to achieve the end result, a work of art.

In closing, digital art is just the latest art form of the 21st century, it is stigmatized because it is new, just like watercolor was when it was new and colored pencils were 20 years ago. Even photography was stigmatized when the first cameras came out. 

Digital art is just art. The computer and the program are the tools, like brushes, pencils and paper,  but the artist is the one that uses those tools to create the masterpiece.

Example of fractal art

Example of fractal art

-Becky Herrera

www.beckysdigitalart.com