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Photography and Digital
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Message
Posted
Painting using brushes on a Wacom tablet or creating vector graphics in adobe Illustrator is what used to be called digital art, using photos and software to alter them was referred to as photo manipulation, it was frankly frowned upon, even laughed at by the digital/illustrator ACE set. Now it's blurred lines, there are artists using transfer techniques and adding photographs onto encaustic that look superb. There are artists taking photographs into a surreal world, where multiple photos are layered to produce a preconceived image which falls very much into my definition of art. It is simply a different skill set, all are valid. Two click software produced images are easily recognisable by anyone with little more than a passing interest. If it is your photograph, your idea, your manipulation then it is your artwork. If you choose this as a way to start a physical artwork then (in my opinion) even better. There is nothing like the textural quality of a physical painting.
I started with digital art, which was quite abstracted, after I switched to canvas and paint I found myself being more and more realistic. I am only recently beginning to produce the images I was able to achieve digitally in a "real life" environment. It has been difficult for me and at times depressing. It has been quite a convoluted journey.
Edited
by Collette Hughes
Posted
I'm an admirer of photography and digital art, some glorious work is being made with this medium. Collette is right that at one time it was sniffed at by the self appointed 'rule-makers' of art. Perhaps it's easing now, because digital art is here and not going away any time soon. As far as I'm concerned it's just another medium, and a wonderful one at that.
At one time I used to dabble using an ancient version of Photoshop Elements. I don't do it now, my hands are not steady enough for the 'selecting' that's needed. Maybe modern software is better.
Here's a pic I made about 25 years ago. A cartoon style image that started as a pencil drawing, that I 'painted' in photoshop...I might easily have painted it in ink, watercolour or gouache. It's a medium, a means of producing art.
I, for one, am always interested to see digital art, and wish I could do more myself.
I, for one, am always interested to see digital art, and wish I could do more myself.
Posted
We have come a million miles from cave art were a burnt stick and rubbed in earth pigments were the only creative tools. Digital art is simply another form of creativity .
The purist in me does question photo manipulation , David Hockneys use of Brushes on an iPad is creative using the programme as another means to “paint”.
Call me an old fashioned 80 year old and give me my pencils and paper.
Edited
by Sylvia Evans
Posted
Digital art I welcome on this site and I regularly comment on some digital artists work. However I do not think that photo manipulation, where quick application of a couple of treatments are applied, can be called painting. Personally, I do not comment on such work, as I think it belongs elsewhere on a photography site. However, I apply a couple of digital techniques to my photos of drawings and paintings, to correct the white balance and crop the image, so you only see the painting, not the surroundings. But this is a personal view.
Posted
I think there is little doubt that to constrain the definition of art is nonsense. Digital art is art. Who would argue that some straight out and out photographs are not artistic, and by definition therefore they are art. There is some great digital art on this site but it is (or at least I hope it is) created from a blank screen, and I am happy to call that a form of painting. I don't want to do down photo manipulation as art but question if it has a place on a website called 'Painters Online', run by 'The Artist' and 'Leisure Painter' magazines. For me the key question is how did to start - with a captured image or a blank canvas/screen. I have not searched, because I am not interested enough, but surely there must be equivalent photo manipulation art websites.
Posted
I have seen Hockney’s iPad drawings at the RA exhibition, A Bigger Picture, and to be honest I was truly impressed.
But I preferred his small watercolour landscapes that were also on display.
His oil paintings were in a different league again, stunning!
Photo manipulation is another issue, adding different filters etc! We can all make our own minds up on that one!
Edited
by Alan Bickley
Posted
Of course digital art is 'art' - - it requires different skills, but it's the result that matters, not how we got there, provided the work is original, and ours. I don't do it, but I think there's a reason for that; it's not that I despise the medium, but having spent so much of my life staring at computer screens I'm getting a bit tired of them - and want to move away and do something entirely different from anything screen-based.
Apart from which - I'm a little whizz at the word-processing, but hopelessly incompetent with image manipulation: I looked at Photoshop - and felt quite peculiar...