What can we learn from Digital Painters...

As many of you know I dabble both in traditional art and digital painting, sort of a jack of all trades.. master of none. As traditional artists we sometimes look at digital art with some disdain as the "new kid" on the block, but I think digital art may hold some wonderful lessons for us traditional artists. One of the benefits of digital art (besides that wonderful UNDO button) is that digital artists can experiment much more freely through the use of layers. This allows them to try bold color combinations and easily discard them if the result isnt too their liking.. whereas us traditional artists have to be much more committed to our color choices from the start. As a result I think we are less likely to be risky with color, preferring instead to play it safe and stick with the tried and true. I understand completely given the amount of time an artist has to invest in bringing a painting to completion.

But as a traditional artist, I have to admit that I look at digital artists work in two ways.. for examples of color choice and composition. I think that many digital painters on DA have developed a mastery of both. I was speaking to a digital artist featured here.. Hennauoti, who is also a traditional artist, and complimented her on her excellent color theory which I assumed she learned via her painting background. She nicely informed me that she learned it through her digital painting, which came before her traditional work. It was then that I realized the impact of digital painting as a teaching tool.

I have often used digital painting to make a color comp study of a traditional work in preparation to painting it. This allows me to be experimental in trying out color combinations and composition in a loose way until I get both working. I can block in various elements, change colors, move things around and fiddle with the value system until its all working well, to that end the computer is a marvelous tool.

I hope you find inspiration in the work of these wonderful digital painters and truly appreciate how far they have taken their craft.



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