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8 Years Ago
...is the same as saying if you type you do not actually write.
This is my annual mini rant.
enjoy
Reply Order
8 Years Ago
It seems it will take time for the art world to accept digital art, eventually it will. I think of Andy Worhal who almost single handily caused screen printing to be taken more seriously as fine art, we all need to thank him or that!
8 Years Ago
No need to rant, Laura -- just keep making art! :-)
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it.
While they are deciding, make more art."
~ Andy Warhol
8 Years Ago
I don't know what kind of digital art you're talking about because it certainly is created by hands and hearts and minds and souls. That is really crummy of any artist to put down other artists.... and other art that they probably can't do themselves.
8 Years Ago
i know someone that had the nerve to say - colorizing is like doing a paint by number...
---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com
8 Years Ago
Unfortunately, other artists can be the worst offenders.
On that sad note, I'm off to babysit -- which is likely to encourage a different type of rant! ;-)
8 Years Ago
Laura,
I like your analogy: "...is the same as saying if you type you do not actually write." I'm with ya.
I work on physical boards (using pens and alcohol ink) and on my ipad. When I'm working on my ipad, I draw with my finger. It doesn't get more "by hand" than that!
But I also have great appreciation for people who create amazing artwork from photos.
-Julia
8 Years Ago
Ronald keeps a squirt bottle of gasoline handy just in case anyone decides to start a fire. :)
Also Laura, I love that idea in the image you posted! One of those I wish I had come up with!
8 Years Ago
Ronald,
Are you with your local volunteer fire department? They always seem to show up at the fires.
There is a connection there somewhere.
Dave
8 Years Ago
You can't hold words in your hand, but you can hold an oil painting, touch it, feel it, smell it, etc. So I'm not sure the comparison to writing is valid. Of course once it's digitized and then printed the source is irrelevant.
8 Years Ago
I am a fine artist in watercolors and once I finish painting the work, I then work with that art digitally. The skill and education required on both ends is daunting. Personally I find no need to look down on how a work became a piece of artwork - it's the creative content and vision that makes it art to me.
Some hand painted work can be as creative as paint by numbers
Some digital work is utterly eye stopping.
It's the artist's eye and hand that makes it one or the other.
8 Years Ago
There is the naive assumption, made by those who have never worked with Photoshop, that Photoshop somehow does the work for you. As if Photoshop could automatically make the thousands of creative decisions required to produce a work of art on your behalf. This simplistic idea appeals to those who suppose that technology is a magical monster that replaces your heart, mind and soul.
The tools you choose to use are vehicles for your creative decisions, whether you use a paint brush, an ink pen, sculpt with clay, or employ digital plug-ins -- all of these provide you with infinitely varied possibilities to express yourself with.
It seems that some people came to link creativity itself with the methods they had observed being used to make the artwork. Once you de-link creativity from a given medium or method, you're free to see creative efforts in the infinitely broad number of forms in which creation can be expressed.
This frees you to identify with your capacity and willingness to create, rather than linking your identity to a particular medium or method. In other words, you're an artist because you create, rather than an artist because you use a particular method.
Besides, what does "made by hand" mean? How is my making millions of precise micro-movements with a trackball to create and adjust colors, shapes, and textures in any way not "by hand?"
8 Years Ago
Human nature is critical. Someone will always complain. Everything great takes time & for anyone to open up & trust it just like any relationship. People will accept it eventually & it will blend with the rest art that was once "outside" art
8 Years Ago
I was really wondering how I created my DIGITAL ABSTRACTS . I didn't realize I could just look at my computer and it would do the rest.
8 Years Ago
If it's not made by hand, how the heck do I go through so many wireless mice every year?
8 Years Ago
I think the average person when they hear the term "hand made" they assume a physical object is the result, I don't think they mean it as an insult to digital artists. I really see no reason to be offended by it. While I only have traditional media in my FAA galleries I have plenty of experience with creating art digitally, I know it's not easy, and in some ways can be more difficult. I spend my whole day at work creating technical drawings and designs on the computer, (my background was originally board drafting BTW) but converting those drawings into steel objects is not easy either, just different, why would I get offended it someone said I'm not a steel fabricator? (I've attempted lots of steel fabrication as a hobby, so I know it ain't easy either!),
8 Years Ago
David K,
There was probably a time when painting a cart with wheels was lazier than building a cart with wheels. And
I am more than sure someone said something.
But perceptions are often not fully formed.
Dave
8 Years Ago
I think a lot of people are shocked when they realize things like iPads are made by hand.
8 Years Ago
I got that growing up with photography. My grandmother was an oil painter and when I would show her my photos, she would tell me that photography wasn't art, and tried and tried to get me to work with oils. Problem was, I was HIGHLY allergic to oil paints and pine thinners, etc. Would put me in the hospital with severe asthma. When CorelPainter came along I was overjoyed. I could finally paint with oils without getting sick ... but alas ... I got the same flak from conventional artists. It wasn't real art. It was fake. It was cheating. Every once in a while I'll even get that here on FAA.
8 Years Ago
Well, this digital image of my hand was done by my hand... To be more exact my right forefinger drawing on my lap-top touch pad.
A true "Digital" drawing in more ways than one.
By the way, the program I used was the challenging free program, "Scribbler Too"....You got to try it.....I dare you
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8 Years Ago
Drew, LOL. Yeah, no need to throw out the mouse every time it stops working. ;)
On topic, there's no need to try and change people's minds, they won't budge no matter how much convincing you give them. In other words save your breath. I say let them have their opinion as long as they don't insult anyone's work. Some people just can't get beyond the 19th century when it comes to acceptable art forms, and really, who cares what they think. Live in the past and you'll be left in the dust.
I use Drawplus X6 to create "hand drawn" digital art. It's fairly inexpensive and has good features. This one is all hand drawn except for the subtle texture on the wall.
The range of art you can do is endless in digital. Another one everything is hand drawn.
8 Years Ago
all i can tell you dave is what i see. you turned a white guy into a black guy and the message changes. i see no purpose changing his color. you would be better off making the giant's head into a an alien or something, rather than change skin tones. i'm not accusing you of being a racist at all. however the image does change messages when you mess with races. just be aware of that. you didn't get away with stretching it out - it looks rather silly. it doesn't show action. place it on a page and ask others to explain what it now means. see if they see your vision. you asked for my opinion. i gave it to you.
dave - my comments are never negative nonsense. they are reality from my viewpoint. just because you don't want to hear them. and just because you think your above them or whatever it is you think - doesn't make them nonsense. i've been doing this long enough to know what i'm talking about. don't ask for advice or what i think unless your prepared to hear the truth. i don't pad things.
---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com
8 Years Ago
Mike,
Are you always worried about everyone as competition? Plenty of us are drawing that conclusion.
Dave
8 Years Ago
trust me dave, i do not think of you as competition.
who is this plenty of us? do you speak for everyone now?
again dave, don't ask for opinions on your work if your not prepared to hear something.
---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com
8 Years Ago
I am lighthearted. Happy, silly, joyful. I also speak my mind, to a fault, perhaps. It's ok that you and I don't like one another - it's a big forum. There will be times we agree and times we don't. I regret name-calling, although I was speaking more broadly and not just about you. That said, I will probably always speak my mind - I don't know how to do it any other way.
It's my opinion that your technical skills are underdeveloped and you sometimes read too much into your own work. I frequently see you interjecting non-sequitur images and justifications into unrelated threads. You're showing the same things to the same people repeatedly, and at the risk of speaking for the group, not many of us are buyers.
Another blunt opinion of mine is that with much more practice and skill building, you may well be onto something good with your manipulations, which is why I defended you and others who work in PD manipulation and re-imagining by saying I think it's ridiculous and unbecoming for artists to pick one another apart based on medium or technique.
The whole thread premise was irritating to me, which probably got my hackles up to begin with. The "digital art" prejudice is starting to become history these days and needs to be put to rest instead of being perpetuated by its own creators. It's all so much angst: "no one understands my work". Digital art, 2D, 3D, video... it's all being embraced by the world's largest galleries. Digital artists should be educating people about how they do the work, not complaining that no one gets it. There are still people out there who think art as a whole is a waste of time. Anyone who rules out digital artwork based on ignorance isn't worth trying to win over anyway. Just keep creating. I think if the work is good enough, the medium and technique don't matter.
8 Years Ago
Mike,
anyone who says "trust me" can't be trusted. I learned that a long time ago.
Why would anyone trust you?
And yes it is quite clear to many of us here you worry endlessly about competition. Not just me, but everyone is
your competition in your mind. You play this out day in and day out.
I don't believe in competition. It is only you worrying.
Dave
8 Years Ago
So you don't believe in competition David B? I don't believe in gravity, but I can't seem to escape it.
8 Years Ago
(^_^) ...The only thing that painters are doing is pushing colored grease around a stretched rag. They did not make the rag. They did not mix the colors of the grease. They did not sheer the animals that produced the bristles. They did not refine the bristles, lathe the wood handle of the brush, assemble the brush. They did not build the easel, the floor that the easel sits on, the lights that light the room, etc., etc. Everybody else has done all the foundational work. All they do is push the grease. Where's the creativity in THAT ?
8 Years Ago
Cynthia,
It is interesting, the three digital artists here are left standing and in some cases
criticizing each other.
If poor perceptions of digital art are to be history set an example.
Rembrandt had his early days. He was schooled. Picasso developed his concepts endlessly.
I am merely Bridburg.
My work is constantly developing. There is plenty of headroom above in my development.
I don't need to hear it from you as a scathing quasi review, because you have some ill will.
I am aware of my growth pattern.
Dave
8 Years Ago
Digital art is not made by the hand - it is made by the machine.
Your ideas are passed to the machine via your hand.
8 Years Ago
David K,
Between two artists here on FAA, is there any real competition?
He sells 300 to 400 prints per year. Good.
Does that help me? Do any of my sales hurt him?
No and no
In this case his worries are persistent deep worries.
For corporate America selling coke v pepsi is a dollars and cents competition.
But for all of us here? No this is not a competition.
Seeing it as a competition is just a waste of emotional energy. It is also a drain on the people around him.
Dave
8 Years Ago
whatever your imagination brings you dave. i don't worry. and i can't see why you would think that. if i was worried - why would i help others?
"scathing quasi review" --- LOL
you asked for an opinion you got one. you have to grow a thicker skin and be more open to what you get. i saw no reason to color the white guy into a brown guy. and no reason to squash them down.
everyone's art should be growing. dave your running in circles and your not making any sense. you sound like a parrot that learned a new phrase. do explain how exactly i'm worried, and how does it work into my critique of your work?
---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com
8 Years Ago
Mike,
You see no reason, but your ability to honestly think is not much. So you see no reason.
That does not stop anyone here from thinking for themselves. Do you expect traffic to stop for you?
Mike, you worry very deeply. That is obvious. We are not in competition. We being everyone else here.
Also you have never helped anyone. Marketing 101 is full of purposeful deadends. You conclude that nothing works, you
reiterate that in various forms a few times over, applying your nothing works conclusion to each of the SMs. People
that listen to you are commonly misdirected. You worry a lot.
Dave
8 Years Ago
dave - you sold 1 thing, you just started photoshop a year ago. making up stuff about me shows your pettiness and your lack of professionalism. show me where there are purposeful dead ends. show me how i'm worried.
if someone is better at what i do, i can't do anything about it
if someone is worse at what i do, then why do i care about any of that?
you've shown that you do the marketing buy you only sold the one thing as far as i know.
in any case, don't ask for opinions.
---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com
8 Years Ago
Why do you keep saying you will be honest? Were you not planning to be?
This is just a list of dead ends in your opinion. Of course only novices need
your dead ends and read it as good advice. Dave
Facebook - I'll be honest, I have no idea if this place is a good place or not to advertise. It's full of cat photo's and recipes. False likes, a few comments, and just a lot of distractions. As of this writing there are rumors that facebook will remove the ability to advertise images there. However you may find people blogging your work, and you may gain fans. But you'll probably just attract family you don't care about, or friends from work that just want to see what's up, but don't care about your work. However that said, you should join to have a presence there, and a link back to your store.
Google plus same as facebook. I was banned from that place for a whole year, and I managed to get back on it just recently. To this day I don't know what I did that got me banned, so I'm not doing anything there at all now. I never erased my account however, that is still intact.
Pinterest I'll be honest, I don't like this place, never did. Its a big clutter of images that are hard to find. If someone stumbles into the site, they will have a really hard time finding anything. And with all the distracting things that are not your picture, people will have their attentions swayed.
On the plus side its a good place to see all your images at once. You can make collections that you think your client will like and they can see it all in one place. So there are good things about the site. I don't like how people can upload images from their hard drive and I don't like the fact you can change the link after. Like the others, you should have a presence there. It's not like you can avoid not being there.
Twitter This place is easy to find people that may like your stuff. Its more confusing to look at it because its mostly text. However I think that's a good thing, as pictures are far too distracting.
Finding followers is easy, getting them to follow back is harder. If they follow you, they will see your tweet. Twitter has a ratio, it's something like: follow 2000 people, and then 2000 people have to follow you back. After that it's a 10% ratio, so your always trying to balance the dead beats out that don't follow you and replace them with better stock.
Adding images - On the outside, adding pictures to your stream seems like a good idea. After all people can look at your work, and you want them to look at your work. However in my opinion this is a huge mistake.
In today's day and age where people are used to looking at an image, very few will click on one to see it up close. And they will do the same with the twitter feed as well. They will glance and move on. And to make it worse, the link, depending on its length will count for your 140 character limit. By the time you post it, there may not be room for a description let alone hashtags. Without hashtags you may never be found.
Hashtags are the blood to twitter. They are the keywords people will use to find your things and group things up so you can see like things. Simply add # in front of a word, that has no spaces and it becomes a keyword tag. Don't add this to your keywords in your store however. Hashtags are used in all the sites I mentioned above (though pinterest is going back and forth using them).
Keep hashtags neat in the line avoid #putting this into #eachLine because its really #distracting each of these tags become blue and it makes it hard to read the line. Try to keep it all in the back. Removing the ad these sites put onto the back.
8 Years Ago
FAA is here to sell everyone's work. Not just your work. We, none of us, are in competition.
Your worries come through loud and clear.
Dave
8 Years Ago
Digital art is not made by the hand - it is made by the machine. Your ideas are passed to the machine via your hand.
An original painting is not made by the hand - it is made by the brush. Your ideas are passed to the brush via your hand.
Oh, wait, ... the brush could not pass your ideas via your hand, without the easel to support the canvas, and so I am wrong - Your ideas are passed to the floor, which then exerts a counter force to gravity to give the brush stability to pass your ideas via your hand.
Oh, wait, ... I forgot about the Earth itself, which gives the ground to support the easel to support the canvas that gives stability to your body's center, to stabilize the movements of the brush through which your ideas are merely passed.
Still not done. What about the solar system, .... the galaxy, ... the universe?
8 Years Ago
that view only works if you put a C clamp at the top and bottom.
but no. it just looks flatter.
---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com
8 Years Ago
Fatter with an L?
It is distorted. And generally art is not supposed to be distorted.
Or maybe it is? Sometimes. I need to think. I am in the early stages of a
new work. Something quite different. 108 x 48 inches maxed out. Not elongated this time.
Dave
8 Years Ago
Maybe I can sell it to Mike S.
Nah, he could make his own much better version, at a much higher resolution, ... give it some fancy Mike S. digital colorizing effects, .... make that C clamp look like an antique, ... maybe with a Thomas Kinkade cottage lighting effect or something.
8 Years Ago
Ive had photogs attack me saying that all I do is paint at the kitchen table from a photograph. This individual went onto rant how they are better artists because they have to go to the location early in the morning whether it was freezing cold or the heat of the summer. I guess it was his attempt to defend his craft in which I wasn't attacking in the first place.
Little did he know that I am a plein air painter and have to get up early and hike to my destination through freezing temps and the heat of the summer, wait for the perfect light, paint like a maniac before the sun moves to capture it, and when it passes I have to come back the next day at the same time to complete my painting and another day if needed.
In all the art that I know about takes work (even if it is done at the kitchen table) and imagination and a skill set. No one should be belittling anyone's art.