Questions about the validity of photography and digital art as art forms are often discussed in online forums. These questions have been put to me since I began creating in these forms. So I would like to have a word about digital art.

This is a huge topic and it is impossible to cover all angles in this post. My basic point is that there are as many artistic decisions and skills in creating digital art as there are in creating more traditional art forms.

Creating Images

When I create a digital image, I often work from my own photographs. Capturing a good photograph which enables elements to be cut from it is an artistic skill. It requires judgment about lighting, framing, capturing colour and tone. Just as I decide where to put the focal point in a painting, I do the same for a photograph, and again in the digital image.

Using tools like Photoshop, I can adjust colour, add texture, crop the image to focus on a particular aspect. I can also add in layers from different photographs – just as I can in a traditional collage work. In the same way, I can change colour on a painting with the addition of more layers of colour.

I love using ‘Procreate’ a digital art tool for iPads and tablets. It has so many tools which replicate traditional painting and drawing. Making marks in Procreate I use a digital pen-shaped stylus. This replicates pencil marks, charcoal, various kinds of paint and more. When I am using Procreate I can adjust the colour, the line size and shape and so much more. I can even create my own brushes and stamps to produce my unique patterns. I can draw around my imported elements (say flowers) and use digital light filters to change the way they look. Sometimes I import a painting I created with watercolours or with acrylics and cut parts of it to enhance digitally.

Decisions and Mark Making

In the end, digital art is just another medium. A different way of creating art. As long as I am making the decisions. As long as I am making the marks myself, I believe it is just as valid as traditional art creation. The problem, of course, is that the development of AI has muddied the waters. Viewers of images can’t easily identify how a work was created.

I can see how applying filters to an image can be viewed as a point between traditional creation and AI. To me, it isn’t the same as AI. If I apply a filter, I need to decide the colours. I have to decide opacity. I have to decide the type of effect I want it to have. I decide if I want it to apply to the whole image or just to sections of the image. Layers and layers of decisions are mine to make. This is the opposite of AI image creation.

In this post I am highlighting scarf designs I have created. All of them began as a photograph. Some were created in Photoshop. Some in Procreate. Every mark of every scarf was created by me.

If you enjoyed reading this post, you can see more in the series here.