All heart for digital art?

Almost everyone spends a few hours of their day scrolling through social media platforms. Some would call it a habit now to open your phone and check your Instagram feed or snapchat stories every few hours. That’s how much of an impact technology and the digital age has had on us humans. In such a scenario, it wouldn’t be an understatement to say that digital media is overtaking its traditional counterparts.

Talking about strictly the field of art and design, professionals and creators started off using purely traditional mediums. An artist would choose between a myriad of paints and brushes to use on his canvas and create a masterpiece. But now, that’s merely the beginning of an unending list of options. With technology at its peak and everyone carrying laptops and tablets, multiple applications specially designed for creating art have become a popular choice. So many up-and-coming artists are masters in digital art and focus wholly on the digital medium through various apps.

Apps like Procreate and Paint Tool SAI are designed to mimic the strokes and textures of traditional mediums to provide realistic results. These apps are considered a one-time investment – once you have it, there’s nothing else that you would require to create your artworks. The fact that they are enabled on a device like a laptop or tablet makes them easily accessible and portable. You can create art on vacations, while travelling, in a coffee shop, or anywhere you please, because all you would need is the device.

With everything happening digitally now, storage and sharing of digital art pieces also becomes easier. They are saved forever, can be replicated easily, can be shared on various platforms, and since they are made digitally, they don’t lose impact on sharing either. This is one of the biggest advantages of digital art since majority of tasks and jobs are centred in and around social media and technology-based platforms, thus giving digital art an upper hand.

Additionally, the learning curve for digital art is slightly simplified with the way the apps are curated. They are made user-friendly and suitable for all stages of creators – from amateur to professional. With the multitude of tutorials and videos available, the process of using these apps and making these artworks is made simple and easy to grasp for anyone looking to learn. There are no mistakes that can’t be undone, or artworks that cannot be fixed. With digital art, almost anything can be created.

I speak as someone who isn’t an illustrator or artist by profession. Coming from a knitwear background, I was not taught digital artwork as part of my course curriculum. It was merely an area that interested me and always caught my eye. My interest combined with privilege of owning electronics, and maybe the remnants of artistic skills from my childhood painting classes, gave me the push to start exploring this intriguing form of creation. My plunge into digital art had me making digital portraits and recreations of photographs. I’ve since then started working on a series of digital portraits inspired by zodiac signs, incorporating their various elements like colour, birthstone, governing planets and more. I plan on continuing to create more and can only hope to improve.

So, to answer the question – is digital art preferred to traditional art, I don’t think there is one right answer. Traditional forms of art are eternal and will never be truly obsolete. Sketching on a sheet of paper or painting on a canvas will always have its sort of therapeutic charm. That said, digital art is being more widely accepted and used because of its multiple benefits and is encouraging more people to dive into areas unknown to them. Its pushing people out of their comfort zone and helping them hone new skills, leading to limitless potential for art, expression and creativity.