How "traditional" are you...

**Black Spot** · August 17th, 2009, 03:32 PM

I’ve been doing a lot of digital in the last two years but recently I’ve found that drawing traditionally can give me exactly what I want and then I can take it to digital. Still waiting for the kids to leave home so I can a big mess and not worry about leaving turps all over the place.

**J Wilson** · August 17th, 2009, 04:19 PM

I've eliminated almost all traces of traditional work from my work flow for paying work. Thumbs to finishes and every step in between is digital these days. It's just so much faster, and with the ability to scale, move, flip, etc on the fly even at the rough stage I feel it works best for me.

I use traditional media here and there when I'm "playing", but not as much as I'd like.

**alesoun** · August 17th, 2009, 05:49 PM

I'm absolutely useless at digi, and don't enjoy the process enough to practice hard and improve; besides which, this pc has zilch extra memory for digi work.

Anway, I like the smell of paint and get a kick out of working past the "What a steaming heap of....." stage.

**Eightballsoup** · August 17th, 2009, 06:25 PM

I honestly feel like I do better doing things traditionally, though certain things that I haven't been able to learn/play with via digitally makes it somewhat easier and less messy. I.E. Charcoal, Airbrush, Paint. Its also hard because a lot of the work that I do want to do requires a space to do it and until now I haven't had the luxury of a perfect spot to work. (of course, i am not counting pencil or ink)

I mean, I would love to have a spot where I could airbrush AND use various tools other then ink and pencil as well as a dark room to work in.

**Liz Edwards** · August 17th, 2009, 06:25 PM

I love working traditionally, but I just don't have the space for it. Working digitally, when I take a break all I have to do is minimise the program. But if I'm painting, I need to clear everything aside or away and when I want to work on it again it's a big faff and I just can't be bothered most of the time. Thinking about it, I'm gonna buy a proper easel tomorrow and claim me some dedicated paintin' space!

**IKV Nexis** · August 17th, 2009, 08:55 PM

Even as a complete noob I can use digi well. I do like the error correcting abilitys but when I take pencil to paper, even when what I do dosen't come out as good, to me there is a feeling of being more "right". I find I can controll the pencil and detail far beter.

Also "idiot box" is Television.

**Flake** · August 17th, 2009, 08:59 PM

I'm happiest smearing coloured mud around with a hairy stick and swearing at the results.

Photoshop did exist when I was growing up but it arrived on floppies, wasn't very good and Wacoms were the stuff of NASA at that point, I'm traditionally trained and I think I'll always be scanning stuff.
I'm from that weird period where computers and stuff existed but they were a bit rubbish.
I saved up for a year to buy one with 512K ram and 512 colours.

That said, I do like a bit of PS colouring , now that we're in The Future and my PC has more computing power than a cereal box.

**Wooly ESS** · August 17th, 2009, 10:35 PM

I am a 100% traditional artist. I love the tactile nature of traditional art creation, and I love the feeling of having created something with my hands. I doubt if I will ever go digital, but who knows.

I am a geophysicist, and for the first part of my career, I sat at a drafting table with pencils, coloured and graphite, and drew my interpretations by hand on paper. Like everything else, the geophysical interpretation business went digital about 20 years ago, and since then I have sat in front of two huge monitors with a Sun workstation humming at my feet. There is no question my efficiency and volume of output went way up, but I still miss the old hand drawn maps and interpretation. Progress dictates that I conduct my business digitally, but I can do my art any old way I please!

If I were doing illustration for commercial purposes, there is no question I would go digital, but since I don't, I won't.

Please don't take this as a criticism of digital art, because it isn't. Digital art just is not for me.

**thinairart** · August 17th, 2009, 11:05 PM

I might be tempted to explore digital more if I wasn't addicted to the wonderful smells of oil painting. Hmmm....oil primed Belgian linen, simply divine.

**VulgarDragon** · August 17th, 2009, 11:35 PM

I do all of my sketches and final inking the traditional way, and reserve digital work for editing and coloring. I could never get used to drawing straight into the computer screen (probably will never) so I just do everything on paper and scan it in. I am from a funny time, too...I practically grew up with computers (starting with Apple IIe) and by the time I was in college, many places were still using those old PCs with monochrome monitors, and graphic tablets were still crude and pricey. They did have those color Macs, but they were expensive as hell. So I never really got into digital until much later. Although I'm relatively new to digital painting, I am learning and getting better all the time.

I haven't tried any digital 3D work but I get my hands dirty in clay all the time, and do tons of crafts. Digital 3D is hardly a substitute for making an actual sculpture that you can hold in your hand.

**daestwen** · August 18th, 2009, 02:05 AM

I prefer to draw traditionally but ever since I started actually working in the industry I work 100% digitally - haven't yet been able to convince my boss that working traditionally at any stage would be a benefit to him, since i have a tablet pc.

never really learned how to paint with any success though, so i have a feeling i would do it a lot more often if i had as much practice in it as i do with computer oriented stuff.

I grew up in the computer generation, so you could blame it on that, i guess.

I was very very small when we got our first computer!

**AndreasM** · August 18th, 2009, 06:50 AM

At the moment, I'm 100% traditional, but only because I lost my wacom pen pretty recently. My art training has been focused on using charcoal, pencils and oil paints, working on fairly large surfaces (at least, compared to my A5 wacom). Really tempted to get another intuos pen and start experimenting again, though.

And as everyone has stated, nothing beats having that distinct 'feel' of the materials you are working with...the varying consistency of the different pigments, feeling the resistance and texture from the canvas when you paint and so on.

**the_jos** · August 19th, 2009, 07:28 AM

Traditional, at least for the time I'm still learning.
I've seen I can make some nice looking things in PS but I want to learn the basics right and feel I might skip to much by going digital too often.

**CCThrom** · August 19th, 2009, 08:48 AM

I'm traditional trained... a graphite, ink, watercolor guy. When I was in college there wasn't an official computer graphics course and "digital art" meant 4 color printouts of fractals programmed in Basic...

I still prefer to work with pencil and paint, though I'm learning my way around a Wacom as well... but I have yet to squeeze work out of my computer that is as good as what I can do traditionally.

As a graphic designer, of course it's 99.9% digital... and as an illustrator I do a bit of final tweaking on just about every piece in Photoshop.

**Asatira** · August 19th, 2009, 04:13 PM

At this point, I'm probably 85% traditional. This partially because I'm not yet comfortable working digitally. I generally start something traditionally, like a drawing, and then color it digitally. For my sequential work, I draw it and ink it by hand on paper, then scan it in for coloring and lettering. If I practiced more, I'd probably be comfortable enough to do more work digitally.

That said, I will probably always be more traditional than digital, even when I become proficient at digital. I like portability of sketchbooks and pencils. I like the feel of pencils and pens on paper. I also like the looks and styles you can get once you get familiar with your tools. While there are programs like Painter that can mimic the look and actions of real media, I like manipulating watercolors and markers, I like the shading and cross-hatching of graphite and ink. There are times I want the look of digital, but only for certain kinds of pieces.

All said and done, I'm for whichever medium gets the look I want.

**ShotgunTony** · August 19th, 2009, 04:59 PM

i havent done a digital painting in years but i got alot of my recent oils on here

www.shotguntony.com

**Uziel** · August 19th, 2009, 06:15 PM

Traditional is more fun, less stress.
Also the interaction with the medium is better and faster.
Unless you know how to reduce processes to a minimum, working digital can be more complex or feel more complex (selecting right color, finding a good digital brush, how can i get good textures, color settings for printing...). i feel less bound or fearless working with paints, pencils, inks even though digital paintings are easier for correcting mistakes.
I will have more satisfaction during and afterwards producing a traditional painting compared to working digital.

Digital has it's advantages especially for fine detailing, repetitive patterns, reproducing the same work, quick adjustments and it's clean
+ it's getting better at imitating traditional art techniques.

**alesoun** · August 19th, 2009, 06:36 PM

I'm just a mucky pup and don't mind charcoal behind my ears!

**The7Artist7** · August 19th, 2009, 07:19 PM

I use both - percentage wise I'd say 95% digi at the moment but grew up 100% pencils, watercolour, acrylics, clay, cardboard, etc ... basically whatever I have in front of me is my tool to create - Computers just happen to be the most efficient to do my job right now

plus it's a really good artistic tool

**markwagner** · August 20th, 2009, 06:45 AM

TRADITION & DIGITAL
I just wrote this to another young artist. Seems to apply here.

You are stopping too early and asking for feedback. Trust yourself, get out of your head, down into you belly and lower back, work from there, act as if your guided (sounds strange but give it a try)... in a good way.

The difficult thing about digital art is that it uses both sides of your brain at the same time, art & technology. It's harder to free your mind when it has to work so hard at knowing what digital thing to do next. Make sure you have a sketchbook handy, draw real things (harder work) and things from your imagination. And keep it up for the next 5 years, lean into it, if you want to really get better, begin to say no to all the things that keep you away from being creative and making art.

There is nothing like working on a large painting!
~M