Nice house! Esp. the one on the left. I like your humanity, your tools, and ALL your skills since 1983 and 1986!

Just because someone has a typewriter doesn't mean they can write a novel; just because someone has Photoshop™ (or Illustrator™) doesn't mean they can draw!
...that's my 2¢!

I'm also of the opinion that the non-destructive changes that digital tools allow do not necessarily eliminate chance and accident. As with any new frontier, the ability to choose what one will embrace and what one will not, and to what extent they will let the tool itself have an impact, is and always has been up to the artist. Just as the meticulous draftsman will not allow accident into his paper drawings, so too will the user of Illustrator or Painter determine the degree to which Edit-Undo will have on his work. This is my one sticking point, because I tend to sympathize with most of Gregory's ideas on creativity.

The ability to go backwards in time does not imply that one does. It does imply an augmented toolkit. This make the artist even more engaged with the work, not less so.

The real issue you are raising is one of serendipity and the extent to which an artist will allow it in the door. It does not have any conceptual relation to digital tools, only maybe the common use of them.

I've tried using a WACOM tablet to draw in photoshop, and despite a lot of people swearing by them, I always find that the results aren't satisfactory. You don't have the same subtle control or feedback. I am sure there are techniques I can learn to improve this, but there's nothing like smudging things with your moistened fingertips.

It's funny - I am left handed, but I use my mouse right handed, and find it very difficult to 'draw' with my Wacom pen lefthanded, as the 15+ years of using the mouse with my right is so ingrained, using another hand as screen 'input' just seems so strange. I have developed such a fine level of control with my 'weak' hand that I guess I will have to totally retrain my brain!

I do like your computer generated picture...

Antony:

I appreciate your comment. Having examined your work, I can see how much more facility you have with digital tools than I do. And certainly I would never presume to say that beautiful things aren't being made with computers.

My point was more personal and subjective. I was pondering the very different way I work and think when I am working digitally and how dreary and constipated I usually find my results to be. It may be pure conceit but my work is generally about capturing a moment, what I see and how I feel here and now. The computer, by allowing me to manipulate time, tends to erode that feeling and the results. My messiness and unwillingness to erase are certainly not something I consider an essential ingredient in art but they are the byproduct of my approach.

I hope you will grant me that Wacom tablets, monitors, mouse clicks, pull down menus etc. create a distance that makes the process of creating with them far less immediate than a pen on paper.

I neglected to mention, in contradiction perhaps of my stance, that the very first book that showed me what digital art could be was called Zen and the Art of the Macintosh, circa 1984.

Thanks again for taking the time to disagree.

Your pal,
Gregory

Gregory,
Absolutely I grant you that. I think the issue is fascinating because to me the idea of digital art tools versus their current realisation is still quite distant. Since I am the approrpiate age (no memory of life before a computer in my world), pulldown menus and general interaction with computers is about as transparent as it gets. I played piano all of my life and I was never good but I did, for a brief moment in time, understand what it felt like to be in the zone (as is said by artists and athletes alike). I get it all the time with sketching.

I also get it while on the computer, drawing.

I don't expect everyone to have this experience and I understand the reasons. For me what makes digital manipulation fascinating is not any given Photoshop filter but rather the increased ante in terms of knowing when your work is complete; for manipulating it remains, in some stronger sense than in the offline world, a potentially infinite task.

And this takes me back to your previous post, about mud, and about how in certain contexts (like commissioned work), this endless tweaking does result in mud. And it does too in digital art creation.

In any case, I do understand the difference you are pointing out. My evangelism is meant to challenge those who disregard digital tools ipso facto without considering the world of accidents that opens up even in a world powered by a CPU.

Ultimately, though, I tend to avoid the very question since I think that in time we won't need the "digital" modifier at all. We will simply be, as we already are: artists, illustrators, picture-makers, and the like.

Kind regards,
Antony

i think the computer is just another tool, but no substitue for drawing. if you can use the computer well but cannot draw at all, it will show.

with your computer image it seems your idea of what a "computer image" should look like, gets in the way. the picture on the right looks very sterile. and your hand-drawn stuff is so excellent & full of life and personality that i don't think you need to used the computer anyway - unless you enjoy it, of course.

I think one can be seduced by the bells and whistles of technology ~ a kind of "Toad of Toad-Hall" syndrome. I suffered from that a bit, I know...I was looking constantly to the next generation of graphics software, a faster processor, the latest tablet. What I wasn't looking at was what was around me, and the tools I had at my disposal that weren't reliant on an uninterupted power supply, ones that I used and loved since childhood. I'm glad to have been reminded of these things again. Of course I still use and enjoy the computer, Wacom and Photoshop (as well as Painter, Expression etcetera) I just remember to pick up the paper, pencils, pens and paint everynow and then, and am a richer person for doing so! Thanks.

I've just returned to traditional media after working digitally almost exclusively after a year and it's such a relief! The digital realm has come a long way, and I still enjoy goofing around in Photoshop, but you just don't get those "happy accidents" that make a piece feel so intimate and real.

Wondering what you take is on the latest craze of ibooks for every seventh grader....this state o' Maine is so hot on this idea right now, but seeing students going through the paces with laptop in hand...I'm not so sure what I think of this super-charged, cyber-classroom anymore...there are plenty of folks out there watching and gathering evidence about this phenomenon...I wonder where we'll end up?..I'd be interested in Jack's thoughts on the matter too...5th... 6th... grade?

I find that I have learned a lot from drawing on the computer. Trained in painting and pottery I have always been after a fresh approach and human touch. I have been afraid I might beat the work to death and as a result have  been afraid of going too far. Working in Painter with a Wacom  tablet  gives this left hander the ability to save things and continue to keep working. I have felt free to go too far and return to the saved version, It has been really instructive and allows me to take my hand made objects further with new assurance. I also have found it interesting to go back and forth between the computer and the hand made approach. Say in making postage stamps, they are too small for me to make solely by hand. I work bigger with drippy hand made brushes then scan them and shrink and print and cut and paste and some times add more color or lines. The back and forth approach has opened many doors for this non-purist.

GOT THE M.C. no.23 TODAY!!! Thank you!!!

I had a huge problem with computer art when I started doing it in 1999. I'm an illustrator who's a fine artist at heart..forget the labels though..I learned to overcome the frustration and see the upside to it.
I much prefer..

...(if you want to see the rest of this comment, visit my diary..cause I'm a jerk who can't shut up:
http://www.my-diary.org/read/?read=35606 )

Danny,

You've received a fair amount of response on this issue but I have a burning question: Have you considered exploring the possibility that creativity expressed in the digital domain by nature takes a different track that creativity expressed via "traditional" means? For example, I just got my computer workstation up and running last night, only by the time I'd worked through all the software and set up bugs I was busy creating using paper, pen, pencil, scissors and paper, and I was having fun! But what I realized is that the creativity I want to express on the computer is different, more multi media. Perhaps this might be a consideration-what is the artist's desired goal/end result? That consideration should by nature require specific means to achieve that goal. Or am I off base?

Doug