Digital art vs Traditional Art vs AI.

Midjourney’s version of Da vinci’s famous oil painting, the Mona Lisa.

This comment on Reddit, which is now “abandoned” because the user deleted their account (or something?) offers a lot of valuable insights. Here are some quotes:

I don’t see AI art as anything more than the logical evolution of software like Photoshop / illustrator etc. If you’re a digital artist you should consider yourself lucky that you got to live through the wild early years where you still entered everything manually. If you made some money doing that be thankful for what you got, don’t be sad about what you lost, it was never going to be permanent.

Anonymous Reddit user

I am not saying I agree with this assessment, but I see where this Reddit user is coming from. They explain in their post that they were “replaced” by digital artists. (They studied illustration right before digital art became mainstream, but they themselves couldn’t afford the expensive computer gear to transition from traditional to digital.)

I may be from the same generation is this poster, because I also started out with traditional art (there were no other real options) and witnessed as digital art came on the scene. Digital never alarmed me or bothered me much, because I was firmly entrenched in selling my original paintings. I didn’t need to “compete” with digital artists because they couldn’t sell “original” paintings, and that’s all I did.

Digital art was always conceived as a way to minimise production costs and maximise output / profit. It was always the beginnings of the sterilisation and industrialisation of art. Letting a computer automate it further is just the next step. So long as what comes out is aesthetically pleasing enough, cheap enough, and readily available the vast majority of consumers will not give one single shit.

Digital art, when there is a person behind the screen, making all the marks, is still “art” to me and I have no problem with it. I never did. These artists have to be highly skilled and study most of the disciplines that old-fashioned traditional artists have to study. If it became necessary, they have the option to transition to using traditional media (many of them already can) because they already have the most important skills required. (Drawing, color theory, anatomy, composition, etc.)

The Reddit user who posted these comments seems to be a little more critical of the digital process:

I got my qualifications in traditional art 18 years ago, always with a focus on illustration…just as Photoshop suddenly started becoming much more accessible to every privileged kid with parents who could afford a nice PC and an iPad. I didn’t have either of those things. I very quickly found myself undercut at every turn by undo and paste buttons, layers, filters, paint fill tools, eraser tools that didn’t scar the page, lighting tools, hue/saturation/contrast tools, potentially limitless reproductions…all things designed to speed production, make it easier to correct mistakes or skip a few steps (let alone drying time), to make it so that you did not require the same amount of skill, effort or time to produce a comparable piece at a much more cost effective rate.

Maybe they have a point about some of the “shortcuts” or techniques that make digital art faster and easier. I concede that. I’ve dabbled a little with digital art and will agree, it takes less time, I don’t have to worry about drying time, I can’t mar the painting surface with too many erasures, and it’s much easier to fix proportion or drawing errors by nudging or moving elements instead of painting over/erasing and starting all over again (which is necessary with traditional art).

I can imagine that some traditional artists, more accustomed to being more precise (not having the option of unlimited erasures and other adjustments) might have a higher level of discipline, so yes, in some cases, a digital-only artist might face a steep learning curve if they were forced to work only in traditional media. (But, I don’t think this is too common and I also have faith in a determined digital artist being able to overcome these obstacles.)

It may sound like I’m criticizing digital art, but I’ll emphasize, I am not. These artists do amazing work and I would never denigrate that. But I can’t help but wonder if this Reddit user is onto something. Digital art sped up and automated some of the process, for the sake of economy. Now AI is accelerating the process even further, but with an important distinction—it’s not a person creating the art any longer. That’s a HUGE distinction!

Like it or hate it, it’s irrelevant, AI is here. It is going to be another huge influx of mass production that will hurt them very badly if they keep all their hopes solidly in digital drawing.

I’ll be honest, I hope the anonymous Reddit user is wrong about “AI is here.” But I think they’re right when they say that society and business will continually be looking to automate, speed up, and “cheapen” art production.

I never, NEVER anticipated that AI would be such a blow to digital art in the way that it has. Who knows what will happen in the future?

All I know is that I’m glad I stuck with traditional art. I grew up with it, it’s my “normal,” and at the same time I’ve always seen its advantages. Digital art cannot produce an “original.” Traditional painting can. Even if AI or some other technology can imitate an oil painting on canvas, it won’t be an oil painting on canvas. It won’t have the human touch. The human touch is the whole reason that traditional art still has a space in the art world, and has survived the introduction of photography and digital art.

It’s something to think about, for sure.