Hi there everyone.
Our earlybird opening was such a success. Go check out pics from the show here.
Lots of friends and family and artists we admire such as Erik Tiemens came out in the stormy weather! Thank you!
Anyhow I wanted to throw a question that has been roaming around my head for some time.
I am often asked by young artists if they should stick with traditional medium when they are learning how to paint. I have noticed, lots of students these days only paint digitally without learning to draw and paint traditionally. My generation who went to school over ten years ago, had no digital media back then so we all learned how to paint with a traditional medium.
Some people only do digital because it is more practical and think painting is painting digital or traditional.
Some stick to traditional because it maintains the artistic purity or just it feels good.
Can artists skip the training of a traditional medium?
In my case, I do my day job of concecpt art almost 100% digitally. It just makes sense for the production needs. It’s fast and it is easy to make changes. But I can’t live without using traditional paints outside of work. I have to say I get this great satisfaction out of traditional medium so much more.
I consider digital media just as pure. Who can say Craig Mullins’ work is any less sophisticated than any of the traditional oil painters? Good work is good work.
————-But I still recommend young students( or anyone) to keep learning from traditional medium.
I believe that’s where you learn so much because it forces you to make “your decisions.” I believe “your own decision” is one of the most important aspects of art. Digital painting could give you some bad habits because it allows you to not make your own decision with undo’s and layers and color corrections all available. I’m not saying it’s bad. I use them all the time for my job. But that’s when you stop making your own decisions of the brush strokes and designs and color and composition…you always have this safe net to change anything later.
I recently have been studying Bill Cone’s color keys he did for Cars and Toy Story 2. He is one of the production designers at Pixar whose work inspired me to get into this business years ago. He is one of those guys who refuse to use digital media even to do his work at work.
The more I study his work, the more I understand how his decision are so clear with his pastels. There’s no Apple Z or fancy color dodge layer lots of people rely on these days. His marks are incredibly decisive. I can understand why he likes to stick to it.
I personally like both mediums to communicate what I need to communicate through my art.
But I would love to hear what your opinion on this would be. I’m sure everyone has their own take on this issue?
pen drawing from my OOP 2 story
digital painting for the final
