Why are we still Painting?
This may seem like a trivial subject, but one that has bugged me a bit lately. I was a traditional media painter for a number of years before getting into the digital realm. And the more I use tools like ArtRage it seems like to refer to our work as a "painting" sort of misses the mark, and is a throwback reference to what is a simulated exercise. Digital image creation has so many more tools, and great complexity and the way you create color is as far removed from traditional painting as photography was when it was first created. Someone smarter than me should coin a new term for digital image creation, maybe they all ready have and I am just unaware of it. Does this strike any resonance with the rest of you? Anyway just my 2 cent observation of the day. :rolleyes::rolleyes::cool::cool:
I like to use the term "digital painting"
My personal favorite is "digital painting" to separate my work from photo manipulation. Unenlightened traditional painters often feel that the computer does all the work, that no drawing and painting skills are needed and then there was that digital artist I knew, who made abstracts out of her photos, using photoshop filters. She kept referring to them as paintings, when I know some of them were created in minutes with a few different filters. I have no problem with photoshop filters, but it is painting techniques, it's photo manipulation.
I tell people that the program handles paint, pastels etc, in the same way that the "real thing" works and requires drawing and painting skills, so therefore it is painting.
I still enjoy the feel of real painting traditionally, and won't give up on it. However, I do feel I have more control with pixels, the unlimited undos, the ease of working on my laptop wherever I happen to be, and no clean up give me the opportunity to do more than I can with traditional paint. One of my students is taking a trip which will involve a very long flight and lots of airport connections and wait time. I suggested she take her laptop or iPad and paint, paint paint!
Elaine