I am a digital artist

I'm perfectly happy to enjoy art created by any means. There is only one rule for me, - that I like it, that it pleases me to see it.

It doesn’t do to be blinkered about any artistic media.

Exactly. My DD2 studied at Glasgow School of Art, but much of her artwork is digital these days. Times change. The GSA now offers courses in digital work.

You can't tell people what you think they should like.

It’s not a question of telling people what they should or shouldn’t like. It’s a question of being open to new ideas. If I wasn’t open minded about art, I would have turned round and walked straight out of Sheffield City Art Gallery last week. Some of the works were challenging, but it doesn’t hurt for us to be challenged sometimes - by either subject matter or technique.

As you say Greyduster Many digital artists had previous art training. And thereby hangs the difference.

I belong to The Arts Society.
Every lecture opens my eyes and my mind. Art is exciting. One doesn't have to 'like' a particular art form to appreciate and understand the art form.

Callistemon21

^and some like those Australian firemen calendars^ .

I've missed those 😯

The Irish Farmers calendar is quite nice too.
Seriously, art encompasses so many forms of visual communication. Found objects, street art, op art, cubism, impressionism, futurismo etc. etc.
All these forms mean something to somebody. If you know what you like and only like representational art that is fine but don't diss other art forms. Art is continuously evolving. People have been shocked by new developments for centuries.

Well, and if you think about it, many painters in the past used a camera obscura and a series of mirrors to essentially 'trace' a scene onto a 2 dimensional plane. Does this mean it is not really an original piece of art?

I stand by my statement that digital art is a new medium for creating artworks.

I don’t even know what digital art is. 😂

It is drawing/painting on a screen with a cursor rather than a pen or paintbrush. David Hockney does it as well as other accredited and recohnised arists.

I don’t think it can be called art if it is digitally made but hey that is me. Each to their own.

But purplepixie what is the difference between holding a pencil in your hand and drawing on paper and holding a mouse in your hand and drawing on the screen. It takes the same manual skills to do both.

The computer programme is in no way affecting what you draw, and presumably if you can use a rubber to erase part of a pencil drawing to change it, it is no different to using a computer erasure to erase part of a computer drawing.

The computer is not improving your art or changing it in any way.

Have you seen any of David Hockney's recent computer paintings and compared them with pictures he did with pen or paint? Can you see a difference.

As I say again. He was a trained artist .

So the argument seems to be that only trained artists can produce digital art.
Does this apply to all art forms?
If so what does this make Francis Bacon?

What difference does it make whether he is a trained artist or not? Having an artistic training doesn't give you magic skills or specially trained fingers or anything else.

David Hockney draws and paints digitally and it is superb. If I drew an painted digitally it would by a mess. The same would apply if the works we respectively produced were made using pen and paper or paint and canvas. David Hockney would produce works of art. I would produce artworks that the average 5 year old would be embarrassed by.

You answered your own question there*MOnica*.
‘ David Hockney draws and paints digitally and it is superb. If I drew and painted digitally it would be a mess* I wonder why.?
The things he learnt at art school, colour, space, anatomy, tone, perspective, style etc all impact upon his digital work.

Same with Francis Bacon. I presume you mean the artist, not the writer, and statesman.

Some famous works are 'a mess".

But an artistic mess !!!

JamesandJon33

Same with Francis Bacon. I presume you mean the artist, not the writer, and statesman.

But Francis Bacon (yes the artist, we are discussing art) had no art school training. He was completely self taught.
So according to your designation untrained people cannot be artists Francis Bacon was not an artist.

JamesandJpn33 But that is not the question. The question is: is drawing on a screen with a mouse art in the same way drawing with a pencil on paper is - and to that the answer is - yes - because my digital drawing will be every bit as bad as my pen and paper drawing, using a mouse and screen will not miraculously improve it or change myperformance in any way and it the same with a great artist like Hockney. His work would be brilliant whether he was drawing with pencil on paer, cursor on a screen or making potato prints.

I like creating artworks on a computer or using photoshop techniques to create artwork. I just have to accept that I can’t achieve the same artistic level with a pencil or a paintbrush. If you can do both, well done.

No MOnica it is not the same whatever the results. Simply because the computer comes between eye and hand .

JamesandJon33

No MOnica it is not the same whatever the results. Simply because the computer comes between eye and hand .

Well actually so does a paintbrush, pencil, charcoal or whatever other medium an artist chooses to use.
So now not only are you restricting artists to those who have art school training but you are asking them to have personal contact with the medium. There are artists who do this (paint with their hands and bodies) but as far as I know it has never been a requirement. Nor actually has art school training. In fact in the history of art, art schools are a recent phenomena.
There is also a huge number of artists who create work in digital media. I suppose you don't consider them artists.

Just wait for AI, the computer will do it for you.