I have been creating digital artworks almost as long as I’ve been creating traditional ones, one of my first requests as a present in the 80’s to get a mouse for my Spectrum ZX so I could use it with OCP Art Studio and The Artist II!
Nowadays I use much more advanced tools, but in a very DIY/rough/human way usually for covers for my podcast and mashups. I create what I call ‘Google Collages’ which when I was less bothered about copyright I’d use Google Images and create the image just from that one seach term as a limitation, usually around the theme of the podcast. Today I use CC Zero / Public Domain images for less copyright hassle, although I transform images so much quite often they aren’t that recognisable.
I also collage my own digital photographs, quite often combining them with photos of my artworks or scanned drawings, or ‘remix’ my artworks, layering them and inverting them, or adding text. Some of these pieces are notionally digital, because they are traditionally pieces collaged in the computer to make the full image. It’s sometimes easier to work like that, less stressful that I will mess the whole image up!
I was a designer by trade, so probably why I don’t often think these functional images as ‘art’ but certainly some of them are artistic, and come from my fine art background. They bridge the divide of illustration and art, I think.
