Is digital art easier than traditional drawing and painting?

Nope!  Any form of art is not easy! Most, if not all digital artists out there, have a good amount of hand skills in traditional sketching and painting.

Just giving you my example: I am a self-learned artist; I have learned everything on my own without any formal training in traditional art by keenly observing the techniques of other artists on the internet and lots of practice.

I mostly do pencil/charcoal/ballpen sketches, watercolor, and acrylic, and these days, I am learning to paint in oils.

Going digital is like a maze (particularly if you’re self-teaching), even if you can achieve a quality you may never get in conventional sketching or painting. 

No matter how many alternatives you have for undoing or making a given process simpler (onionskin a drawing to later obtain a better line art), it’s still a problem because of all of the numerous formats, programs, and brushes to choose from.

Using a mouse or tablet and a screen instead of having your medium and piece directly under your hand is also a bit disconnected from my own endeavors. 

I guess it’s simply a question of getting accustomed to it. Traditional education, on the other hand, tends to be more intuitive (most of us are conditioned to draw and write by hand after all at the beginning)

Although conventional painting isn’t simple, mastering digital art requires a strong foundation in the first place in order to expand on it.

Resources:

Check out the Comprehensive List  of  Digital Resources needed to Start your Digital Art & Digital Sculpt Journey:

• How to get started with Digital Art- A Beginners Guide
• The best iPad for Nomad Sculpt- 3D Art
• The best iPad for procreate
• Top 10 Best Tablets for Digital Artists
• The Best Human Anatomy Books For Digital Artists
• Essential & Must have tools for Digital Artists

Is digital art easier than traditional drawing and painting?

So yes I mastered my hand skills in traditional art first. Whenever I came across any digital painting, I always used to wonder how can someone do that on a computer. 

I had no links or information about art on the digital platforms so over the years I kept studying about it in bits.

I learned that I will need a graphic tablet for that but I could not afford that as I was still in my College. I continued doing my traditional art and studying more about digital art.

I guess I got my hands on digital medium at the right time when they launched Apple pencil supporting iPad pro and I was like Yes that’s what i was looking for. And I gave it a go!

Talking about my artwork on a digital platform, I usually do sketches or oil paintings. But trust me, it’s as similar and complex as traditional art.

High-quality detailed paintings will require several hours and even days to finish!!!

Digital art, of course, allows you to undo the things which traditional art won’t.. so mistakes can be corrected in digital art as per ur desires!

Saying that digital art is easier compared to traditional art: No! it’s not! it’s as similar and complex as the traditional one and does require good hand skill before you lay hands on it!

Digital art is easier to manipulate and redo

For example, if you realized that you drew one eye too big, you can just select it and change it. The undo button also makes it a lot easier to get rid of mistakes without leaving any traces.

However, I find drawing with a pencil slightly easier than drawing on a tablet. Since my tablet is a Wacom Intuos, it doesn’t have a screen. It makes it a bit harder to pinpoint the exact location of where I want to draw. It’s still pretty easy overall though.

LAYERS!! Traditional art doesn’t have layers, so if you mess up, then it’s all gone…If you messed up on one layer, it doesn’t affect the other ones. You can also trace onto another layer, so you won’t need numerous pieces of paper.

The whole point of digital is to make things easier. That is the point of advancing technology. Why would using digital tools show no technological progress, or make it harder? That would be ridiculous.

Of course, it’s easier But when it comes to art you must know all basics of Artwork to start working on the digital Medium. That doesn’t mean that it’s automatically easy to do.

Digital art is a little bit more easy-going

• Mistakes can be undone.
• Can Modify Your Mistakes 
• Can archive your work
• Construction lines/layers can be placed and then removed.
• It’s easier to iterate and refine images made of layers of pixels than it is pencil lines and daubs of pigment.

But a bad digital drawing is still a bad drawing. No amount of digital trickery will fix poor observation, bad proportions or perspective errors.

So good artists become even better digital artists.

Bad artists remain bad artists regardless of medium.

As per Analysis of the interaction between digital art and traditional art by research gate the digital art and traditional art will develop more effectively if they collaborate and share knowledge. 

Especially as a new form of digital art, it must be receptive to the traditional art of learning in order to maintain their creative energy.

Traditional or Digital art has Learning Curve

Both are the same! you have to learn to use the tools in either traditional (brush, oil, palette, etc) or digital (pen, tablet, software, etc).

You’ll love both the more you practice and you become better at it.

Most of the people working in digital-only are either traditionally trained artists who have learned digital and switched due to physical limitations or are illustrators who may or may not be traditionally trained and find it easier to meet commercial deadlines by working digitally.

There are two other much smaller groups: those who started out as photographers and have used digital as a way to switch to producing works that are more “painterly” or “illustrative” and those who have just become completely fascinated with digital as an art medium.

This brings me to the second part. Most traditionally trained artists who work in digital, only do part of their art digitally, and there are plenty of people who have some training in both, who use digital *only* as a final prep to get their works formatted and prepared for printing and only when they are used as licensed images or for mass printings (like posters, wall art or postcards).

Whether an artist prefers digital to traditional media will have more to do with their attitude toward art media than it will be related to specific trends.

For example, if part of their satisfaction as an artist is pulling a brush or other tool full of paint over a canvas, they will most likely never switch to digital as a primary medium.

Also, in some cases, an artist’s personal economic situation will inform their decision. 

Despite the expense of traditional art materials, they only equal the cost of a computer and software if you buy a very large supply at once, so traditional media is still more affordable at the front end.

Not to mention that there are crafty ways to produce art materials out of the trash or from recycling/repurposing.

Advantages of Digital Art Over Traditional Art

When it comes to creating and customizing art, the flexibility offered by digital art software is unmatched. Instead of only giving you the option to work with standard brushes, watercolor brushes, and pencil tools of various opacities, the software also lets you redo your work over and over again.

DIGITAL SOFTWARE OFFERS SOME AMAZING FEATURES, TO NAME JUST A FEW:

• Once you understand how to use it, it might be easier to get started and accomplish a job.
• There is no limit to what can be done in terms of experimentation (like creating many layers and painting from any color).
• The undo button means you don’t have to wait for a paintbrush to dry before you can go back and fix mistakes (making edits within seconds).
• For clients, it’s easy to replicate.

Layers

It’s obvious that digital layers are a major benefit. Traditional art does not allow for this kind of experimentation.

These digital layers allow you to make adjustments to your paint without causing any damage.

In traditional painting, there is no way to even approximate the layers. What if you wish to depict a person?

Create a layer for the sketch, a layer for the base paint, and still another layer for the shading and details once you’ve created the layers above.

There is no limit on what you can do. You have complete control over the appearance of each layer and may work non-destructively on them all at the same time.

The components may be brought together by turning on all layers after they have been tailored and finalised. 

By using this technique, it’s possible to make changes in only one layer without having any noticeable impact on the drawing’s overall appeal. 

Keeping and archiving artwork

You don’t have to worry about storing, conserving, or transferring your artwork in the digital world.

They’re really nothing more than a few gigabytes in size. Your artwork will occupy a physical area in the conventional art, however, this isn’t the case.

Additionally, if you’re an oil painter working with large canvases, keeping your artwork organized might be a challenge. Plus, you’ll be able to return to your previously saved artwork anytime and anywhere you choose.

You may print your paintings once they’ve been transferred to digital form. There are several possibilities.

Redo/ Undo the progress

You may undo and redo your progress with digital software. It takes some trial and error to produce the perfect work of art, and that’s where the undo and redo options come in.