Going Digital

I'm thinking of doing more of my artwork digitally. In other words, I'll create my "paintings" in Photoshop rather than on canvas. I know, I know. Many traditional artists would consider this blasphemy. But, let's face it. It's the Digital Age.

There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to doing this.The major disadvantage is I won't have an original to sell. But there are also a number of advantages. The fact of the matter is, I sell more of my art on prints and for licensing on products than I do in the form of original oil paintings. It appears more people want my art on their iPhone cases than on their walls. While not the ideal world for an artist, it is what it is.

So, considering that, let's consider some physical advantages of painting digitally:

► No more spending money on paints, brushes, canvases, and frames.

► Less space needed for creating art because I don't have to store all those brushes, paints, canvases, and frames.

► No unsold paintings to try to find a place for.

► No more time spent washing brushes and dealing with paint waste water.

► No need to spend time and money selling, packaging, and shipping originals.

► No more time spent shopping for supplies, stretching canvas, gessoing, or cutting and gluing foamboard.

OK, that's mainly about saving time, space, and money around creating art. I'll talk about some of the advantages during the actual creating of the art for a later post. For now, here's my first Photoshop attempt at a digital bird painting.

I want to point out this is NOT a photo manipulation. There is no photography whatsoever in this image. This was all done by hand, brush stroke by brush stroke, just as I would do on canvas. Even though I'm using Photoshop, I still want my art to be my hand that paints it, not the computer.

This is, of course, still a work in progress. I intend to add a lot more ... background trees and flowers, more birds and birdhouses ... This is just a first glimpse.

Created using Photoshop CS5 and a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet.