Is Graphics Software Destroying Traditional Art Skills?
Sunday April 16, 2006
Is the use of graphics software detrimental to fundamental art skills, or does it teach an alternative set of skills and present its own challenges? This is the question About's Graphics Software Guide Sue Chastain has raised, following an article in the Washington Post about how "art students spend so much time toying with computer graphics these days that many wind up without needed drawing skills" and how "tech-savvy students simply lack the initiative and persistence developed by drawing". As digital art becomes recognised as 'real' art and graphics software becomes more sophisticated, do you still need to learn traditional art skills? For instance, using Corel Painter I created the marbling-effect image for this blog in a couple of minutes. Granted it's not the most sophisticated of marbling, but I was able to do it without needing any knowledge of marbling techniques.
Vote in the Poll: Do Artists Need to Learn Traditional Techniques?
1. Yes, you'll always need fundamental drawing and art skills, even for digital art.
2. No, paper-based skills are old-fashioned, learning graphics software is today's skill.
3. Not to the same extent, but you still need some idea of how to do it yourself.
4. You can't beat doing something by hand, from start to finish
5. Something else.
(View the results of this poll so far...)
Image: ©2006 Marion Boddy-Evans Licensed to About.com, Inc
Comments
Drawing evolves, art so. Beauty not so. Until we get familarized with what is computer art or not and while we maintain classic views based on classic techniques, we are at the same point as stone age painters wich were considered artists for being a little group wich possued only the technique.
Where you are not correct is in implying that traditional drawing skills aren’t used in digital painting. I am not talking about playing with filters..I mean digital painting.
If I want to make a painting of a girl, I still need to draw the girl. I use a Wacom and stylus, and the marks I make are my own…
I like the analogy of sawing a peice of wood. If I use a handsaw or if I use a circular saw to cut a peice of wood, the wood is still cut, either way.
Another example..if I use a ballpoint pen to draw a girl, or if I use a pencil..I have still drawn a girl, but they will be approached differently, and look different.
Digital painting is indeed easier for many reasons that people might find surprising. One…each brush is specialized to a greater degree than with traditional mediums. Two..it costs nothing to experiment like crazy before incorporating a technique into a finished work. Three there is an “undo” funtion in digital art. I am sure there are some other factors that I haven’t thought of at this moment.
But, it isn’t easier because the computer is doing it for the artist.
One thing I can use to attest to the fact that digital drawing and painting requires real drawing and painting skills…both traditional and digital artists often have to ask me what medium I have used for a painting. They can’t tell the difference. My drawing and painting style, remain exactly that.
And yes…I do both traditional paintings as well as digital.I am not the best artist in the world, but I make a living and I am knowledgable about both.
Drawing is what teaches you to see. Observation is key to making effective design. In that respect, it is important, but making a fine, skillful drawing as a product is, to my mind, less important to the artist. Graphic artists who have a strong basis in drawing in design will generally have the upper hand competitively, because of the thought processes they’ve developed. They will not have to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. On the other hand, someone with intuitive instincts for design combined with curiosity will always do well in either field. The computer is simply another tool. The real art process is in the head; it involves research into the world around you, and a need to express and communicate.
Hand work is important training for the eye, but I don’t know how long into the future. Eventually we will find even less need for it. The quick layout sketch for shape, proportion and scale is invaluable and doesn’t require a computer, but everything is evolving.
The computer is replacing public longhand and the mental organization one needed to compose, even on a typewriter. Convenient and cheap paper, the steel pen, and then the typewriter replaced oratory and the mental organization one needed to communicate and argue in public. Photography replaced portraiture, landscape and genre painting as necessary documentation of life.
I still teach manual drafting for students to learn to see 3 dimensions in 2 dimensions, but I give that only a couple of more years.
I can draw and paint very well using my hand and would never give that up. I also love doing digital fine art because the computer and its digital/cyber environment let me create amazing art that I could never do by hand. My digital art and hand created art both created seriously and I incorperate artistic principals I was educated in while attending The School Of Visual Arts in NYC in drawing, painting, color theory, 2D design, etc.The computer and software are just another tool of artistic expression I use to create serious art. I have digitaly created some amazing things that could never be done by hand but fundamental artistic and design principals are always applied to my work no matter what media I am using.
This paralells something I believe in Photography. You’ll never be a real photographer if you just start on digital, why? because going to digital straight away you don’t learn anything, it’s all done for you and you’ll always find yourself behind and totally dependent.
The same applies to Digital Art. You’ll fine all the really good Digital Artists have backgrounds in traditional means. But I have yet to see anything in Digital Art which couldnt be done by hand.
I can create the same things in digital that I can do in traditional drawing. The difference is that I don’t have to scan digital work. I believe some people have horrible misconceptions about both. Digital does require the knowledge of light sources, perspective, anatomy, etc. Same as traditional. The difference is no graphite on the hands, paint to wash off, and the like. Now, the huge difference is with the cheaper drawing tablets, you have to get used to looking at the screen whilst drawing. Not the same as seeing it on paper. Not all of the pen pressures work as you would like.
Nothing is being lost because a true artist loves to do it all. We don’t always like spending all our time around the computer. I still love the feel of papers and pencils, or pastels and pens.