Digital painting

Digital painters create pictures in the form of an electronic image without using any base model or photography. The computer replaces the easel and imitates the traditional tools and techniques of a painter, such as brushes, paints, washes, working with layers and textures. Technologies have simplified the creative process: digital oil or acrylic do not smell or stain, watercolour does not dry out before the required time, the quantity and quality of brushes satisfies even the most demanding artist. Paint mixing takes time and experience, and the computer allows an artist to select a shade in a second. A “real” painter has no right to make a mistake, while digital artists cancels the last action or returns to a saved stage of his work by pressing a key. Traditional craftsmen draw a sketch that includes details and nuances of the future image, and then paint the image. Digital painting gives the artist the right to change the paint or erase the material, correct the shade or structure, change the composition or background of the painting, combine “incompatible” techniques in his work.
Painters of computer technology create still lifes, landscapes, portraits and genre scenes and do not limit their creativity to pictorial directions. With computer effects, the artist develops an individual handling, intuitively combines traditional and avant-garde styles in one’s digital art. Technologies of the 21st century have created an amazing, but imperfect art. Computer equipment and modern monitors are not able to work in the resolution of the human eye. To create a digital painting, the painter must be fluent in the tools (software) and centuries-old knowledge of perspective, volume, light and colour solutions. The problem of copyright has come to the fore — it is very easy to copy and replicate the file. Yet digital painting develops and allows talents to create paintings, illustrations, comics, games and design models.
To introduce the technique and works by digital artists, check out the paintings by Bogena Día. With the help of a graphics tablet, software and a stylus, she draws amazing and recognizable images of celebrities, episodes from documentaries and feature films. The talented girl lives in Penza, draws digital paintings from scratch, like traditional artists, and constantly improves her skills. Japanese artist (male or female, the author carefully hides the name, gender and age) YDK Morimoe aka Xhxix creates dark and colourful surreal portraits. The subjects of the artist do not leave the viewer indifferent. The digital paintings of the talented Japanese convey the painful and humiliated state of adolescence, reflect the depth of the subjects’ emotional experiences. Morimoe’s software “canvases” burn with bright colours and emotions. Marta Dahlig from Poland has a recognizable artistic signature and creates stylish, sophisticated paintings. The Seven Deadly Sins series has become a legend in digital painting and a model for young digital artists. Canadian artist Cris De Lara started out by studying traditional painting, painted in oils, and now uses software to create comics, illustrations, advertising and television products. Japanese Digital Finger Painter Yusuke Akamatsu has earned the reputation of a master of digital painting in many countries around the world. His Transfiguration series of abstract paintings considers the theme of personal awakening. The works by the digital artist surprise with their imagery and convey joy, anger, fear, hope, no worse than the paintings by the old artists. Niko Kirkos is a creative tandem of the collector Nikolai Belousov and the young artist Stanislav Kirkilevsky. The result of this collaboration was digital paintings aesthetically close to traditional ones; they combined the achievements of virtual and real art: multilayer images, changing colours and tones, texture combinations. Viewers of the 21st century prefer the works of the “old schools”, which convey the talent and mood of the artist through brush strokes, pencil strokes or pen movements, preserve an artist’s inaccuracies and mistakes. However, digital painting is developing rapidly and surprises viewer with stylistic, aesthetic and emotional diversity.
Famous digital paintings:
Frida Kahlo by Bogena Día; Communication, The Hat by YDK Morimoe aka Xhxix; Gollum by Igor Komarov; Seven Deadly Sins series by Marta Dahlig.
Famous digital painters:
Ed Lopez, Marta Dahlig, Bogena Día, YDK Morimoe aka Xhxix, Igor Komarov, Yusuke Akamatsu.