final paper

Topic: Discuss the works of some digital artists and discuss the particular skills involved in its production, noting how the final result is affected by the choice of techniques.

Traditional Arts are so great and are something that are high class.This is what I always think of. Traditional art like painting and sculpture need technique and skills. This make traditional art become so valuable.

I also make digital arts like using Photoshop for drawings or edit photos. For me, using computer to make arts is so great that I do not have to buy those materials like paint brushes, paints and canvas, this save a huge sum of money because those tools are so expensive. What I need to do is control the mouse and tablet, draw on the “digital canvas”. I do not have to wait for drying, clean the brushes, mix the paint……etc.

Everything seems so easy, so people may think digital arts don’t have great values. Sometimes, when I show some of my digital artworks, people think that I’m just copying them from the internet or may think those works are just something that can be easily made by the computer.

Of course, I do not agree with them, because I have seen so many great digital artists from the internet. The digital artists that I will talk about in this paper are Akiyoshi Haru from Japan and Aki from Hong Kong. I honor them very much and I learn a lot from their digital artworks.

Before I introduce the two digital artists, we can first talk about the different between digital art and traditional art. The definition of traditional art here, is those painting like the one draw by Van Gogh and Rembrandt. They are the artists who use traditional tools and skills to draw painting and they are the Great Artists honor by the majority. That make me think of a question----Can digital artists also be a Great Artists? Nowadays, I still couldn’t find a digital artist have similar respect as the traditional one. I know it is so difficult to be compared, so what I want to say is digital art can also be a great art.

I’m also a digital artist, and I agree that although digital art are something that done by the computer program, our hands and creativity are the most important ingredients. The one who can prefectly use the program can not make him be an artist. The same as traditional paintings, good tools cannot build the Great Artist. The computer program is just the tools. Most of the digital artists I know can draw on both paper and computer.

Most of the people choose to sketch on the paper first and then scan it into the computer for coloring. To have the effect like using water color or oil painting, we still need to know the feature of those medium first, especially water color. I remember that when I first try to use Corel Painter to draw water color painting, I failed because I cannot control it well. It really like using water color on canvas! Technique is also need in drawing digital art. So, what are the difference? Ignoring the problem of undo and reproduction, a reason that make me choose to use computer as the medium for drawing is the special effect that it can make.

Here, we can take Akiyoshi Haru’s artworks as an example. In the teaching part in her site, we can find that after finishing the coloring process, she will readjust the color, light and add some special effect on it. For example, to make it more green or red. This cannot be done without computer, or we can say it is very difficult to make this by hands. And I think this is a very important feature of using computer for drawing.

Another advantage of using computer as the medium, especially Photoshop, is the layer function. By using this function, we can divide different part of the painting into different layer.We can do anything to that layer without affecting the others. And this is really convenience. Most of the teaching classes in the website will first teach people to make layers and this is also cannot be easily done without computer program.

By appreciating Akiyoshi Haru’s artworks, we can find out the possibilitiy of using computer program as the medium. The computer program can imitate different brush stroke and tactile, so we can have the effect of water color, oil paint and acrylic by just using the computer without having the tools. By using different strokes and coloring method, Akiyoshi Haru’s artworks come out with different style. For example, water color style, animation coloring style and rough style. And she always do new experiment, and try the new method. We can say that computer give us a chance of trying different style without using a lot of money.

These are some of the adventages of choosing computer as the medium for drawing. But because of these adventages, digital arts are underestimate by many people. They look down on digital art because they think digital art can be easily produced and need less technique. During the process, we can undo infinity times and copy and move the image freely. When we use the brush for painting, one small mistake can destroy the whole painting, but by using the computer, mistake can be recovered by just pressing a button. I agree with this point that I also have smiilar feeling.

As I have show in my blog, I draw both acrylic painting and digital painting. After I compared the time consuming and other details of the process, I agree that digital art can be done more quickily. For the acrylic painting, I need to wait for the drying of each layer, and after I finished it, I need to clean the brushes. During painting the painting, I make many mistakes and many of them couldn’t be recovered. Every paintings are like a project and are time consuming! Different from this painting, digital art seems to be more free. Look at Aki and Akiyoshi Haru website, we can find out that they can have a new painting everyday. I do not mean to underestimate the efforts that they had paid, but most people may think digital arts are more simple.
Although digital art is so convenience, both in processing and exhibiting, it face a really big problem---the problem of plagiarize. This is a really serious problem that many digital artists are still facing and seems to become worser. Because people can change your work by using the computer easily. Once you show your artwork on the internet, everyone can see, everyone can change it or even “steal” it. I remember that there was a case that someone find out another artist exhibit his works and said this is his own work. And the original owner of the work find that he have difficulty on proving his work because he don’t have the physical object in his hand.

In the past , traditional art had also faced a similar situtation that there were some forgery appear, but the forgery cannot be easily produced, the people who make the forgery also need to be highly skilled. Digital art are different, they can be reproduced by just pressing one or two button on the keyboard. This can be a reason that why people think digital art have lower value than traditional art.

To avoid your artworks being stolen, you need to become more famous and popular, and let more people realize your works and style. Like Aki, she is a famous artists in Hong Kong, so if people steal her works, others can unmask it immidiately. But for those who is still not very popular, must be careful.
For me, traditional art and digital art are both great art forms and I enjoy making them. I hope people can appreciate both of them and respect the efforts of the artists. For long term development, I think what people should do is not to depreciate anyone of them, but to accept both of them, moreover, to mix them together.Enjoy making traditional art and digital art, find out the possibility of both of them.And you will find out that art can be so great and interesting.


Bibliography:
Dewdney, A., & Ride, P. (2006). The new media handbook. London; New York: Routledge.
Pavlik, J. V., & McIntosh, S. (2004). Converging media :An introduction to mass communication. Boston, Mass.: Pearson.