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Even before the Renaissance, creating personalized art was a time-consuming and laborious process. Models would have to sit still for hours on end while the artist created sketches and then there’d be days (if not weeks) of painting. In the end, there was no guarantee that the subject would be happy with the results. Today the various types of digital art mean that things are a lot faster and easier.
While there’s a lot to be said in favor of the traditional methods and they’ll always have a place, modern methods can make life so much easier. Freelancers and companies like Pixels Photo Art have put down the brush and picked up the digital pen. The different types of digital work have gone a long way to make what was once expensive, elitist, and out of reach for most people a lot more affordable and accessible.
Traditional methods like oil on canvas have served us well for centuries and there will always be a space for them in the art world. That being said, the old masters were nothing if not innovative, embracing new techniques as they were developed. Current artists are no different.
Digital painting comes with some distinct advantages over the traditional methods:
Let’s break them down a bit:
As we said above, art used to be a time-consuming process for both the artist and the model. Hours spent sitting still as sketches were drawn up, then even more hours spent slaving away at the easel as the final piece was carefully crafted.
Digital art doesn’t suffer from these issues. For example, we've made it incredibly easy for customers to commission a painting. In the Renaissance period, obtaining a personalized portrait required significant time and money, but now, it only takes a few clicks and comes at a fraction of the cost.
All a digital artist needs is a reference photo, their computer, and their drawing tablet. This means the customer only has to send a reference photo digitally and the artist is free to work whenever and wherever they like. The whole process is way more flexible and convenient for both parties.
The artist also has unlimited access to all the tools they’ll ever need, so there are no more pauses while they run to the art supply shop to pick up the perfect brush or find the ideal shade of oil paint.
Art is always slightly experimental. There’s no guarantee that everything will go exactly to plan. Something as simple as a sneeze could absolutely ruin a traditional piece, wasting hours of work and expensive materials.
Thanks to the magic of the ‘Undo’ button, that’s simply not a problem that digital painters face, freeing them up to be a lot bolder with their artistic choices. If something doesn’t quite work out, a quick click means that it’s gone.
Likewise, the ease of access to painting and editing tools means that painters who embrace the digital pen over the brush have even more options to play with style, and effects and produce totally unique works.
Time is money as the old saying goes and that’s certainly true when it comes to the creative arts. Digital processes speed everything up, allowing artists to offer much more accessible prices for their work. It also saves significantly on the costs of materials and supplies, further boosting the available savings on the final product, which leads us neatly on to the next advantage:
Physical supplies are replaced with software. This means that any artist has access to exactly what they need, when they need it with a click. Not only does this mean that things are a lot more convenient (no more waiting around for deliveries) and cheaper, it frees up the artist to be more experimental and play with their work without fear of wasting expensive products should it not work out.
This is really a continuation of the point above, but easy access to a huge range of tools and effects really does speed up the artist, allowing them to play with their computer-generated digital art, producing some really striking works more easily than in previous generations.
Art is meant to be shared and digital production techniques make this easier than ever before. Digital art is already ready to be shared at the click of a button, making showing it off and sharing it simple.
Digital painting is much faster than the tools available to previous generations. There’s no need for sketches and straining over the minute details on canvas. Errors no longer require time-consuming work to recover from. The process is streamlined, freeing up the artist and the model to do other things.
Without the need for physical supplies, it’s not just the financial costs that are lessened- the ecological impact is a lot smaller too. Though digital painting requires a power-supply to create and store, it doesn’t produce much waste at all; no empty tubes, no toxic paints and no energy-intensive production methods for canvas, paper or other materials.
The equipment lasts for years and years, meaning that the ecological costs across its lifetime are minimal. When it does finally reach the end of its usefulness, the electronics can be recycled, further cutting down the impact.
With so many digital art styles painting with a computer is every bit as versatile as its traditional counterparts and in many ways, it’s even more so. From producing fine art such as portraits, through commercial art for logos and documents and emerging disciplines like creating immersive VR video worlds, the tools are right there for the artist to experiment with meaning they can play with different styles and offer a huge range of services.
Digital painting can do anything the traditional methods can. Software and drawing tablets have replaced easels and brushes, but effects that mirror the traditional media are easy to come by. This means a digital artist can access watercolors, oil and acrylic paints, gouache, charcoal, pencils, inks and pastels in any conceivable tone without having to rummage in their supplies box. The same goes for brushes, paper and canvas grades or any other aspect you could care to name.
This has allowed us to offer a wide range of services, including painting anyone in royal or Renaissance attire. But don’t just take our word for it—explore our Renaissance Portrait collection, choose your preferred outfit, and have your portrait created in no time.
Concept art gives designers the chance to put their ideas down on paper (or on screen in modern terms) before passing their ideas on to the teams that will develop them. Digital painting and drawing make this process easier, quicker and more convenient. This means that the artists, the designer, management and everyone else on the team can have their say at every step without getting in each others way.
Works can be shared, non-destructively edited and copied, allowing commercial teams to work together more closely and increasing collaboration across sectors from fashion to medical textbooks, animation to product design.
Anyone who’s ever tried to insert a piece of art into a document knows the struggle of resizing things without ruining them. Vector art does away with this by replacing hard lines with digital data ratios, making it versatile for almost all kinds of digital art.
One area that digital painting really shines in is the creation of caricatures, comics, and anime-style illustrations. This has huge implications for artists and consumers alike- with increased productivity from digital artists, there’s more art out there, from traditional media to webcomics to custom profile pictures.
Even the deceptively simple discipline of line art has been revolutionized. The easy availability of different pens and tools and the ability to simply click ‘Undo’ when needed make the whole process easier, faster and more easily shareable.
There are countless software options out there that allow you to dabble in digital art production but the industry standards are Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. These come with an amazing selection of tools built in, allowing artists to produce striking works with a minimum of fuss. If a specific tool isn’t there, there’s a good chance that someone has created an add-on pack.
Alongside all the tools and features, the internet is filled with easy-to-follow tutorials, making playing with digital art incredibly accessible.
Digital art has changed the world. It’s now cheaper, faster, and more convenient than ever to have the images in your head translated into the real world. The revolution has changed how we access art in industry, entertainment, and for personal use.
Will it ever fully replace the traditional art hanging on gallery walls? No, and nor should it, but that’s not to say that it’s any lesser. The different types of digital art free the artist to produce more, more freely and that has to be embraced. Anything that makes art creation more accessible can only be a good thing.
