Artwork

I'VE BEEN AN ARTIST for 35+ years, a digital artist for about 22 of those years, and a graphic designer (off and on) for somewhere around 15 or so.

I got my "start" with digital art when my oldest was a toddler, largely because easels and paints and all that stuff 1) took up way too much space in our tiny house and 2) were a bit of a hazard with a toddler running around all over the place.

So I tried my hand with my first tablet, a Wacom Intuos 2, sometime around 2004.

Gave it a week, hated it, and put it away for like a year. I "finger painted" on my laptop's trackpad, instead, which was surprisingly effective (and I still do it sometimes). But some time later, I realized a tablet with pressure sensitivity could offer a lot more flexibility, and that I'd probably do well to try again in earnest, so I forced myself to practice with it. Once got over my initial struggles, it ended up being my favorite way to "paint" because there was no setup, no cleanup, no extra stuff taking up space. If I had to stop to go do something, I could click "save" and walk away instantly.

I eventually upgraded to a Cintiq 21UX—the type of monitor you draw on, like a canvas. That was... life-changing. I'm back to a regular tablet these days because computer upgrades over the years eventually rendered my Cintiq obsolete, and I just haven't splurged on a new one. It would probably be a must-have if I were drawing/painting at the cadence I used to... I've been much more focused on writing since 2015 or so.

I have a lot of thoughts about digital art in the Age of AI, as I'm sure most artists do. I mean, innovation has always been a part of the creative process... over the years, we've embraced new software, new tools, new ways of bringing our ideas and vision to life.

And I won't lie: it's exciting to see what these tools can do. It's fascinating, and sometimes even—I hate to admit it—inspiring. But it's also hard not to wonder what happens to the value of human effort when creation becomes automated. Images are generated in seconds from styles and techniques that took artists years (or decades) to develop. The same is true for writers and authors, in fact.

Most artists I know aren't afraid of technology itself. They're afraid of being replaced, overlooked, having their work treated as raw material for systems they never agreed to participate in, or being accused of using AI to create their work.

(That last point is interesting, especially for those of us whose work literally helped to train AI. I can't say for sure that my work influenced image generation, I might never know, but my first book was part of the whole Lib Gen fiasco. I'm equal parts honored and pissed, if I'm being honest.)

I see possibilities with AI, but I also see risks. I appreciate what these tools can do, but I also believe that there is something irreplaceable about human creativity... the experiences, mistakes, emotions, and perspectives that shape every piece of art.

Maybe that's the real conflict... trying to figure out what art actually means when AI exists.

I don't have all the answers, and this ended up being a little bit of a meandering stream-of-consciousness exercise when it was really just supposed to segue into some of my favorite digital art pieces.

I had to laugh when I was pulling my portfolio together and looking at some of my earliest digital work I'd forgotten ever existed, because it kinda looks like really bad AI.

It made me realize the reason why AI is so bad at hands, by the way. It's because a lot of artists are also bad at hands. Seriously. Sometimes I'd just crop the canvas in a way to avoid having to draw or paint them at all. My high school art teacher is probably cringing since one of our biggest assignments had us drawing our non-dominant hand fifty times, in fifty different positions.

I learned nothing from that assignment, apparently.