I too am an artist who has long worked in more traditional mediums and today the computer is my tool of choice. But that is what it is, a tool. I also believe that the end result of an artist's endeavor is the important part but the tools we choose are part of our process and that is also important. I believe that labeling a digital artwork as a traditional medium does injustice to both terms. It seems to me that someone calling a digital creation an oil painting is somehow ashamed of their chosen medium. I would no more call my digital images oil paintings than I would call a Second Life sculpture cast bronze.
We need to be more brave and identify ourselves as creating in a given medium and not be afraid to call it what it is. The sooner we do this the sooner art made on or from the computer will gain more serious acceptance in the art world. The state of digital art today is like the state of photography 100 years ago. Too many people do not recognize it as a legitimate art medium. Stand up for your digital work, call it what it is!
As you say, our digital art programs are tools, as has been all the tools we use in nondigital art. In nondigital art, we do not say we used our thumb to get proportions correct, or a ruler, or a shadow box, or…you name it. We simply say that this is a pastel, or more likely just name the painting. Why then say that the pastel done in Painter, which is virtually indistinguishable from a nondigital pastel, is a Painter product?
We may do so in our description of painting for exhibition, and I do this. But this only reflects the transition period we are in for our art. Eventually, even that will die as digital art becomes the norm, which it will.
I want to repeat one point I made that is not appreciated enough. We do not ask the photographer showing his art to admit to using photoshop to enhance his photo. That is accepted and expected. Then why wish this be done for other forms of art, such as an oil painting?
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