A friend of mine sent me a link to an artist on fiverr who can take a photograph, such as this one,
and transform it into a digital watercolor, like this.
That’s pretty nifty, for five bucks. I love the result. I’ll probably have him do some more in the future.
But this made me think of one of my pet peeves: people who don’t consider digital art to be art. I’ve yet to see any digital art in a museum or an art gallery. As a fractal artist myself (you can see my work here) this frustrates me to no end.
Granted, we are not using paintbrushes or charcoal or clay, but we come up with a concept, make aesthetic decisions, and use a computer as our tool. The things we produce are unique and have style.
And why is using an already existing photograph and making something different out of it, as this artist does, less worthy than, say, a collage or mixed media work? I’m even willing to open a can of worms and say that things made via Photoshop are works of art. You’re making artistic decisions. Often the results can’t be exactly duplicated. It’s creative. That, to me, is the essence of art.
The View from a Drawbridge 