Wednesday 09th July 2014
Working with physical media can be incredibly satisfying, as any tactile artist can tell you. There's something uniquely beautiful about working with your hands, and if that's your favourite thing to do, then by all means, keep it up. Many artists have recently decided to make the jump from physical to digital media, as computers grow more and more powerful and capable, and even less of a headache to use than the nightmares they were in the very early days of digital art. Making the transition from physical to digital can be quite daunting for the non-technical, but there are some major advantages to leaving the physical world behind.
First and foremost, there is the fact that if you follow proper backup procedures, it's virtually impossible to lose your work. The rule of thumb for digital media is that if it doesn't exist in AT LEAST two places, then it doesn't exist. Hard drive failures do occur, and if that was the only location you stored your artwork files, you're out of luck. Fires, theft, and other insurance nightmares plague the physical art in the same way, but if you keep a copy of your files on your computer, another copy on a USB key, and another copy on a digital storage service like Dropbox or Google Drive (both of which have free storage options), you'll never lose another piece of work.
Second, it's extremely easy to take your digital work and apply it to any number of different media. No hassle about digitizing offline work and trying to colour match and scan, you have a natively-created digital file. Making prints is easy as pie, although remember that the more prints you create of a piece, the lower the value of each print becomes. That's one area that physical media has an advantage over the digital - the original art piece is a one-of-a-kind artifact.
Finally, it's possible to create things digitally that are virtually impossible to do by hand. The same is true of physical media, of course, as sculpture and depth of media don't translate very well into the digital world of a flat screen, but that may inspire the third choice - instead of working either digitally or physically, blend both together to expand your horizons. Mixed-media pieces are very hot right now, and if you can figure out innovative ways to make the digital and the physical work together, you may help generate an entirely new style!
If you're really interested in making the transition to digital media for your artwork, check out our series of past posts about choosing a monitor, choosing mac or pc, and how to colour calibrate your monitor so that it displays accurate colours. But most of all - have fun with your art!
Posted on July 09th 2014 on 07:50pm
