Gap

By Julia Willis

With digital art, watercolors can be mastered with the click of a button, sculptures can be made in a single sitting, and three dimension effects can be added without the artist even having to get out of his or her chair.
rt is everywhere. You see it as you go to school, you see it in books as you read, you see it in clothes and in shops it is completely unavoidable. Art was here from the very beginning. When Adam made his first set of trousers or when he built the first vanity for Eve, art was around. And, of course, it has come a long way since then. From Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Giotto, Donatello, and Vincent Van Gogh to Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and so many other artists, art has certainly come a long way. One of arts most recent turns is the turn from tangible tools to more technological ones. I am referring to digital painting, or digital art. It is an emerging art form in which traditional painting techniques such as watercolor, oils, impasto, and many more other art forms are applied using digital tools such as by means of a computer, a digitizing tablet and stylus, and software. Digital painting differs from other forms of digital art, particularly computer generated art, in that it does not involve the computer rendering from a model. The artist uses painting techniques to create the digital painting directly on the computer. All digital programs strive to mimic the use of physical methods through various brushes and paint effects, many of which represent the traditional styles like oils, acrylics, pastels, charcoal, pen and even media such as airbrushing. Digital art has changed the way we see true talent. With digital art, watercolors can be mastered with the click of a button, sculptures can be made in a single sitting, and three dimension effects can be added without the artist even having to get out of his or her chair. With digital art pPeople are rarely portrayed as what they really are, but rather what the audience wants them to be. With the technology we have now, we can do things, see things, and create things that we never even thought possible, things that could never be captured in real life. Art has shifted from true skill and dexterity to true software and data. Audiences now expect art to be fantastical, full of color, and faultless. But even Senior da Vinci made mistakes. When creating art with a literal brush, a knife, or any other tool, mistakes are going to be made, and yet with digital art, there doesnt have to be any mistakes. If the artist slips -up, all he or she has to do is erase it, with no harm done. But is this truly art? If something is created digitally, is it real art? If a song is written and performed by computerized instruments is it still music? Is it still art? Has the digital world redefined art completely? Art used to be reflections of what the artist saw and how he interpreted what he saw. Now, is art simply the artists way of showing his audience what he can do and how well he can do it? Are these digital pieces allowing the audience the same sustenance, so to speak, as opppon

traditional art? There seems to be an undefined and unstable gap between traditional and digital art. And if theres a gap, is there also a bridge? Perhaps there is no bridge. And perhaps the ever diminishing island of Ttraditional Aart will sink into future innovations and be lost to the world forever. On the other hand, perhaps this form of traditional art will live on like drawings in a cave or artifacts in a museum or the mummified bodies of ancient Egyptian pharaohs. Maybe it wont be lost to us after all, but simply transferred to spend the rest of its time behind bullet-proof glass and security lasers collecting awe and wonder from the world who will undoubtedly scratch its head in confusion as to what it in the world it could possibly be.

With the technology we have now, we can do things, see things, and create things that we never even thought possible, things that could never be captured in real life.