[suny]

A teacher told me that the first difference between digital art and traditional art is the way they interact with light: light comes from the screen, and light bounces from paper.
so, you can see my image on my screen, not anywhere else. There will be a difference of color value, constrast and luminosity between my screen and your screen, or worse, between my screen and the printout i made.

Digital images are reproductible. Everyone can copy a .psd, and have the perfect copy of the original on his harddrive. I guess it's why there's no market for digital art: no one is interested in buying something that isn't unique.

Everyone use the same softwares, and every images produced in photoshop have the same gesture and painted mark. The gesture is algorythmic (as in Painter), and reprodictible, or doesn't almost exist (photoshop's brushes). There is no more accident, and less expressivity.

what else can you think of ???

S.

[balistic]

"so, you can see my image on my screen, not anywhere else. There will be a difference of color value, constrast and luminosity between my screen and your screen, or worse, between my screen and the printout i made."

A painting's color isn't constant either. You think DaVinci painted under electric lights? Because, you see, that's how his Mona Lisa is displayed . . .

Physical art is just as variable as digital art . . . you're never going to see exactly what the artist saw when he created a piece, unless you were there while he was making it.

"Digital images are reproductible. Everyone can copy a .psd, and have the perfect copy of the original on his harddrive. I guess it's why there's no market for digital art: no one is interested in buying something that isn't unique."

No, there's no market for digital art because there are very few of us working to make one. There's no market for digital art because art collectors aren't interested in the shallow fantasy pictures that so many of our kind are happy to produce.

Music is easily reproducable too, but there's a market for it.

Don't try and sell your PSDs . . . sell an Iris print, with your signature on it. If its good art, people will buy it.

"Everyone use the same softwares, and every images produced in photoshop have the same gesture and painted mark. The gesture is algorythmic (as in Painter), and reprodictible, or doesn't almost exist (photoshop's brushes). There is no more accident, and less expressivity."

What?! How about this:

"Everyone uses the same oils, and every image produced in oils has the same gesture and painted mark."

See how ridiculous that sounds?

If a piece of art tells what software was used to make it, that's not the fault of the media, its the fault of the artist. It means the artist has failed to completely control his tool.

There is no difference between art created digitally, and art created traditionally, when it is created by an artist who is in control of his tools. Its all just colors inside a rectangle. It doesn't matter how the colors get there, or if they're lit actively or passively . . . all that matters is the idea, and the image.

Rectangles filled with colors. That's all we make . . .

[ January 24, 2002: Message edited by: balistic ]

[balistic]

Since I ragged on your post, I guess I at least owe you some things that I think /are/ specific to digital art:

- revision saving and undo - A painter can't just revert back to a previous version of a painting if he makes a mistake, whereas a digital artist has an unlimited ability to archive his progress. Digital media has a much more flexible workflow than traditional.

- scale - digital media has no tangible size, instead it inherits the size of the device displaying it, or the paper its printed on, or the resin its been etched out of.

- arbitrary physics (3D) - a sculptor working on the computer doesn't need to worry about structural integrity, or center of gravity. One part of a sculpture need not be connected to the next.

[ZippZopp]

i'm in the same boat as you Suny, my professors don't really like digital art.
my take on it is that Art is art...and what i create is mine and thats what makes it unique. the medium and techniques may be different, but in the end its creation and it takes someone to make it.

[Ian Jones]

I agree with Balistic and ZippZopp, Digital art is undervalued at the moment, and it is partly our fault. I think ppl tend to see so many mediocre digital works, because of the accessibility of images on the internet, we all get to see the newbie stuff aswell. Whereas a gallery will only ever display the 'good stuff' and you rarely see newbie paintings. People seem to think that digital art is so easy, and probably due to the reason that they see more newbie stuff than they would of the traditional painting counterpart. However it is not any easier to have a brilliant idea, it is only a bit easier and different due to the tools that a computer affords us.

An image is an image, and no matter how it is created, if it is good, then its should be called good. Not just disregarded because it is digital like so many ppl tend to do.

I would say that the ppl who think digital art is of lesser status that traditional art, are only proving to us their insecurities. They like to think that 'those awesome FX!' are just a filter or something the computer has done by itself. It's just so wrong. You can create bad digital art, and you can create good digital art. The issue is not what tools ppl use to make art, or how well they use those tools, but the proof itself is in the final imagery.

[gekitsu]

wht i like most at digital art is: it's clean and it has undo levels.
just imagine: i can stand up from painting and go out without the need to clean myself from all the ink spots and color drips. okay, maybe i lose something that makes athmosphere of "real painting" but i think leaving an image (at least in painter) for a few days, some day continuing and having my watercolor still wet is a nice thing too.

[spooge demon]

There is a similar hierarchy in traditional art. Drawings and watercolors, for instance, are less valued than an oil paintings. Not much sense there.

Fine art is much more valued than the applied or decorative arts. Not much sense there either. Let's not even talk about illustration.

Drew Struzan made the point that the Sistine Chapel was a commisioned illustration. Hehe pope as AD. He seems to think that his work, being as fine as it is (and it is) will have a life outside of it's illustrative origins.

So who cares anyway? I think some comic art is pretty wonderful, as well as some matte paintings. Chuck Jones is a genius.

My wife has related that when people ask her what her husband does and she tells them, the reaction is something like;

what does your husband do?

he's an artist

how nice! what kind?

a digital one

oh, I seee...

uh, who does he work for?

he freelances

uh, I sorry to hear that... I sure things will look up soon dear...

[Malachi Maloney]

quote:

---

Originally posted by spooge demon:
There is a similar hierarchy in traditional art. Drawings and watercolors, for instance, are less valued than an oil paintings. Not much sense there.

Fine art is much more valued than the applied or decorative arts. Not much sense there either. Let's not even talk about illustration.

Drew Struzan made the point that the Sistine Chapel was a commisioned illustration. Hehe pope as AD. He seems to think that his work, being as fine as it is (and it is) will have a life outside of it's illustrative origins.

So who cares anyway? I think some comic art is pretty wonderful, as well as some matte paintings. Chuck Jones is a genius.

My wife has related that when people ask her what her husband does and she tells them, the reaction is something like;

what does your husband do?

he's an artist

how nice! what kind?

a digital one

oh, I seee...

uh, who does he work for?

he freelances

uh, I sorry to hear that... I sure things will look up soon dear...

---

BADA BING!

By the way, the people that say that to your wife are obviously idiots.

Malachi

[suny]

he balistic, of course it wasn't my point to undervalutate digital art: it's what i do for a living, and it's what i like.
i was waiting for a few answers, that's all. And your second post was very interesting. I like the analogy with the music market, of a cheap digital art, reproductible, an art for the masses, not only for the rich buyers. (Of course it wasn't my idea to sell a psd, it was an illustration of my "the printout is not the original" idea.)
But i disagree with your

"Everyone uses the same oils, and every image produced in oils has the same gesture and painted mark.
See how ridicuous that sounds?"

it's sound ridiculous, because it's false. Analogic stuffs are richer in textures than digital one. For example, never any yamaha synthethiser could emulate a stradivarius, because of it's intricate texture. There are accidents, there are randomness... And still, i love electronica, because it's not, the medium that counts, i agree.
My point was that, digital art is not a cheaper version of traditional art, it's something else.

S.

[balistic]

"My point was that, digital art is not a cheaper version of traditional art, it's something else."

And with that I will certainly agree.

And you're right . . . a synthesizer can't emulate a violin very well . . . and neither can a violin emulate a synthesizer

That's a point that always seems to get lost on pretentious jazz musicians . . . "no, I can't improvise music spontaneously very well with a computer, but your upright bass can't begin to touch the frequency range of my tools either."

[Frost]

Craig: Haha... now that's funny.

Others: That's one of the reasons I am not big on the word "art", "artist", and all the stereotypes and conflicts in generates. I just do my stuff as I please and that's it. I don't care what others may or may not think about its validity. I'm expressing myself and learning things I want to learn. Period. The rest can go to hell.

Now I agree that a trait of a genuinely good artist is one that can master the medium and his work, so the 'undo' and 'reload' aspects makes it so any individual can do something good looking eventually with those tools he is given, because he doesn't have to live with the consequences of his bad actions during the developement of an image (a question of being a real professionnal who really masters hs work). The 'undo' (and hue/sat/value/contrast editing) facet of digital art is both a good thing or a bad thing... I tend to look upon it as a bad thing, because it is a crutch that we easily become attached to and prevents us from doing things right the first time. I personally beleive a real artist should be talented, controlled and disciplined enough to do well without those crutches. Then again, these are all oppinions and everyone has them, -- ...

[ January 26, 2002: Message edited by: Frost ]

[a_sh]

personally, i think it matters very much how the colors got into the box, so to speak...

when i look at a picture, i value it not only what it is, but how it came to be.
a picture of a mountain made in bryce is never as impressive as the exact same picture made in maya or 3dsmax.

artistically they are the same, (as they are identical) but the knowledge that bryce makes it (in my opinion) so much easier for the artist, takes away some of the wow-factor. i'm simply not as impressed, and that reduces the pictures value to me.

but then again, it can be discussed if i'm really valuing the picture as 'art' and not as a demonstration of skill by doing this.

just my two �re...

hope i made some sense

[Drawnblud]

Why does Art have to be "painful"? Why must the Artist "suffer" when creating. People are saying that Digital art is too easy. That software helps the artist and therefore anybody can create digital art. I've been drawing for 16 years and I thank God for computer art!! I am for whatever makes my art easier to create. The easier it is to create, the sooner I get done and the sooner I can start on another project.

My point is, is that art isn't how it is done, it is the idea that inspires the artist to create. I have seen a lot of pictures that maybe the anatomy wasn't perfect, or the perspective is off, but the picture is really cool because of the idea behind it.

Primitive cave drawings are considered art, yet their media was blood and berries, their medium rocks, they used their fingers and the anatomy sucked. Then, these upstarts came along with their "brushes" and "canvas" and challenged the cavemen. The cavemen scoffed at this new form of art saying that it was too easy.

Okay, so maybe my timeline is a little askewed, but I think my point has been made.

Art isn't about how it is done, but why.

BTW, I'm not trying to p!$$ anyone off, just expressing my opinion. Thanks

[Zwaeback]

A couple years ago I gave a slide presentation of my art for a senior art portfolio type class. Some of the art was created by digital means, the rest by traditional. People simply did not know or care how the work was created, only what it looked like. At the end of the presentation i said how it was done. Most were surprised that the digital work was created by digital rather than traditional means.

If someone asks how i work i tell them i'm a painter....thats it. The general public isn't going to care about how the work is created, whether its art or not...only whether they like it.

I'll also add that in general digital artists don't put as much work into their paintings as traditional artists do. Sometimes you have to put time into a painting to get it to work. I remember a presentation by Ralph McCurrie? (the Star Wars Concept artist for episodes 4-6. He said that he would work 10-12 hours a day. On one of this paintings (the one with the droids sitting in front of a fire place) he worked around 140 hours on it. Michael Whelan used to work 70-80? hour weeks.

Art can take time...take as much time as you need to. The process will become much quicker as you improve your technique. Maybe just an hour or so eventually.


Phil