- Hello there, and thanks for joining me.
I'm digital artist Aaron Rutten,
and in this video, I'll answer a commonly asked question,
and that is, is it better
to learn art digitally or traditionally?
(electronic music)
In my opinion, it doesn't really matter
if you're working digitally or traditionally.
In fact, I think you should be able to do both.
There are some advantages to working digitally,
and there are some advantages to working traditionally,
as it pertains to learning about art,
and so I'll go over a few of those things.
First is the rate that you're going to learn
how to create art.
In my opinion, learning is accelerated working digitally
because you have the flexibility of working
without having to worry about making mistakes.
Nothing is really permanent in digital art.
If you paint a tree that you don't like,
if you do it on a layer, you can simply delete that layer,
and you can start again,
whereas if you're working on a canvas
or in a sketch book, even if you use your eraser
or even if you completely paint over that area,
it's adding a lot of extra time
and a lot of extra frustration,
and you're spending that time learning how to fix mistakes,
but it takes a lot longer to fix that mistake,
and I feel like you should really be learning
how to paint, not spending time fixing mistakes.
It's important to be able to recognize mistakes,
but you don't need to spend
an absurd amount of time fixing them,
and if you're just trying to learn,
and you're trying to make this as easy as possible,
and you're trying not to get frustrated
and feel like you're going to give up,
then I think, in that case, working digitally
could be a lot better than working traditionally.
The second point I want to talk about
is the freedom to experiment.
It's very frustrating to ruin a piece
just because you chose to make an experiment.
Digital art gives you the freedom
to try an endless supply of approaches to your piece,
with little to no risk of ruining it.
If you compare that to working with traditional art,
if you experiment,
and you try to paint somebody's face green
or add in some little glazing or something,
and it doesn't look right,
then you have to spend a whole lot of time
repainting that area.
Again, as I mentioned earlier,
if you're working digitally,
you can put that green tint on the face
on a separate layer, and then if it doesn't look right,
you can simply delete that layer,
or you can reduce the opacity of it to blend it in more,
or you can even just simply shift the color
without having to repaint it again,
and trust me, less frustration is going to make you
a lot more interested in making digital art,
and it's going to help you stick with it a lot longer.
When I was working with traditional media,
I would always get frustrated by all these stupid things
like accidentally smudging something,
or trying something that I wasn't sure about,
and then it ruining the whole piece,
and it just really took the fun out of it.
The third point I want to talk about is the ease
of which you can start and stop working on your art.
Now obviously, working digitally,
all you have to do is turn your computer on
and double click on your application and load your file.
Then you can start painting.
You don't have to mix a bunch of paints
and do all this extra preparatory work
before you can start painting,
and then when you're done,
you don't have to clean up a whole bunch of stuff.
You just save your file first, and then close it,
and then turn your computer off when you're done,
whereas if you're working with oil paint,
you have to clean all your brushes,
and you have to wash your hands,
and you have to put all of your paint back away,
and all this stuff,
and again, that just eats up time
and it adds more frustration.
The fourth point I want to talk about is easy of self study.
How hard is it for you to be able to just go in on your own
and learn things, without having to go to college?
I think in this case, it's pretty balanced
between traditional and digital.
There are plenty of digital art tutorials,
YouTube videos, websites, courses and eBooks
for digital painting and traditional painting.
However, there are a lot more for traditional painting,
because traditional painting and drawing has been around
for much longer than digital art.
However, digital art has kind of existed
in the era of technology,
where there are more eBooks and videos,
and so there probably are a lot more people
who are tech savvy making stuff for digital art.
So it really could go either way,
but the cool thing is,
is whether you're working digitally or traditionally,
you can still learn from a traditional art book,
even if you're working digitally and vice versa.
The principles of making art are the same
no matter what media you're working in.
And so that's why I think it's important
to be able to do both,
and to experiment with both,
and to get good at both.
The fifth point that I want to talk about
is whether or not the way that you're making art
encourages you to think outside of the box,
and in some ways, I feel like working digitally
encourages you to think outside the box more,
because sometimes, you're doing things
in a more roundabout way,
and sometimes, it works better.
You know, you can make selections
or you can transform your nose
to make it bigger or smaller,
and you can do things in a very technical way.
And the last point I want to discuss
is the cost of the hardware, you know?
What do the materials cost
when you're working digitally or traditionally?
And when you're working digitally,
if you don't already own a computer or tablet,
it can be expensive to invest in the tools
for making digital art,
however, if you already own a computer,
an inexpensive beginner's tablet is about the same price
as buying a decent set of pencils and sketchbooks
and all the other supplies you might need
to make traditional drawings.
So either way, you're going to have to spend some money
in order to get started.
However, when you're investing in digital art tools,
those tools can be used and reused
over and over and over again.
Once you buy digital paint,
you have digital paint forever.
You never have to buy it again,
unless, of course, you upgrade
to a newer version of the software,
whereas if you're buying traditional paint,
every time you use the paint,
you have to go out and you have to buy more.
When you use your pencils,
the lead wears down on the pencils,
the eraser wears down on the pencils.
You sharpen the thing, and then it's gone,
and you have to go buy more pencils,
and you have to keep buying pencils and pencils
and paper and erasers, and it just never ends.
And in some ways, you might end up spending more
in your lifetime on traditional art,
rather than digital art tools.
I think in the end,
I'd rather not have to go to the art store
every month or every week or however often,
and go buy more supplies.
I'd just like to invest in something once,
something that I can just take out and get into,
and make art without having to worry about making mistakes
or clean up my messes or go buy more materials.
So in the end, I'm more comfortable working digitally.
I've experienced both working traditionally
and working digitally, and I still love to do both,
but I'm just more comfortable working digitally,
and that's kind of the process
that you're going to have to follow as an artist, as well.
You're going to have to try both.
You're going to have to see if you prefer one over the other,
but they're both going to help you learn how to make art,
and they're both going to be effective in their own ways.
I hope you found this information helpful.
If you did, take a quick second to like this video,
and if you're new to my channel,
I'd love to have you subscribe.
I have a lot more videos for digital artists like you.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.