When talking about art creation, many artists get lumped into two categories, traditional artist or digital artist. Traditional art encompasses anything that is a tangible form of art i.e.: think paintings, sculptures, photography, or print making. While digital art, focuses on art creation using a computer or laptop, with programs geared towards digital art creation. Think of digital art programs as a one stop art studio that allows the user total freedom of control with applications such as brush tools, pencils, colour palettes, shape tools and assets at your fingertips. No matter what type of art you create, both forms of creation have their advantages. Traditional art is a messy process, pencil lead shavings, paint splatters, thrown out sketchbook pages. all results from mix media , for some can be off putting. Certainly for many artists, including myself, these messy outcomes are all part of the fun. The idea of getting your hands dirty and seeing the final results is a gratifying feeling. Similar to a chef's kitchen having dirty pots, but the end result is a mouth watering dish. For most traditional artists these creative sessions act as catharsis, a sort of method to the madness so to speak. For me personally I feel a sense of comfort knowing that my desk is messy with paint bottles, open sketchbooks, pens and brushes all scattered about. It makes me feel as though my studio is lived in! and that all my supplies were put to good use. Even by today's standards, traditional art is still considered the holy grail of contemporary art. Canvases from high profile artists catch high prices that years ago would seem like a pipe dream. I cannot think of any down side to art creation, whether it's for your own benefit and therapy, a passion turned into a business, or a personal hobby, using the creative parts of your brain has great benefits for cognition. 

Digital art, on the other hand, has recently had it's defining moment. A very nuanced skill for tech savvy artists, great for the creation of logo designs, comic style illustrations, and digital painting for concept art. With recent programs like Apples Procreate, the creation of digital paintings and illustrations has never been more user friendly and streamlined. Unlike Traditional art, digital art requires a particular know how. Some digital art programs come with steep learning curves, and each tool set and asset can have a myriad of ways to use them, which can be overwhelming. The beauty of learning how to use digital art is that once you get the hang of it, the possibilities are endless. Promotional flyers, conceptual art, comic books, animation, special effects, merchandise, T shirt designs, are all created using digital art programs. Up until recently, Digital artists had no way to authenticate their art like traditional artists, but with the introduction of NFT's known as non fungible tokens on a block chain, this is made possible with the token acting as a certificate of authenticity. Now digital artists can sell their works as jpegs, videos, animations, etc…to buyers and collectors in the same vein as traditional artists do with paintings. As an artist who uses both traditional and digital techniques to create his art, I see great benefits in both depending on what you are trying to achieve. Recently I've been embracing and experimenting with both traditional and digital art in the NFT space and it has been a great experience learning and seeing my skill set grow. Even though I titled this blog traditional vs digital, in reality art would not be the same without either medium as they both provide great creative outlets for artists.