Every now and then, someone — a friend, a client, or a well‑meaning stranger who’s just discovered Photoshop — leans in and asks, “But isn’t digital art… cheating?”
It’s a fair question, and one that deserves more than an eye‑roll and a dramatic sigh. So yes, let’s talk about it.
First off: no, I personally don’t believe that digital art is cheating, not in the sense people usually mean. That is — the “type a magic prompt into an AI bot and voilà, instant masterpiece” sort of thing. If you’re letting a machine do all the heavy lifting while you sit back with a cup of tea, then yes, that’s edging into “creative fraud with extra sauce.” The bot is doing the thinking, the painting, the imagining — you’re basically just pressing the doorbell.
And honestly? It drives me up the wall when I see AI‑generated images being paraded around Facebook as “my latest watercolour” or “my new oil painting.” No brush, no pencil, no intent — just a prompt and a prayer. That’s not art; that’s cosplay for algorithms. If anything threatens the future of creativity, it’s that.
But digital painting — the kind I tend to do — is a completely different beast. When I start a piece, it’s essentially a blank canvas. I might bring in a photograph I’ve planned, shot, and crafted as a foundation, but from that moment on, it’s all me: decisions, colour, composition, texture, emphasis, instinct. I push paint around — digital paint, yes, but paint nonetheless — with the same intent and the same stubbornness any traditional artist will recognise. The difference is that I use a computer, whereas a traditional artists uses a brush, paint etc.
My point is that every stroke, every adjustment, every moment of “why isn’t this working?” is part of the process. The creativity is human. The vision is human. The mistakes are human. The triumphs are human.
So, are my creations “real” art? Absolutely. They’re as valid as anything made with charcoal, oils, acrylics, or mud on a cave wall even if frowned upon to some extent.
The bottom line is that the tools may evolve, the process may evolve but the heart of art — imagination, intent, and the sheer joy of making something unique — remains exactly the same.
