I have been recently looking into what computers can do for artists.  And so, I looked at ‘Photoshop’ from Adobe.  As an artist, I work in a similar way to Photoshop- altering colours, collage, cutting pasting, overlays of paint, etc.

Playing around with it, I discovered that how ever good computers are, they can’t replicate the human eye, hand and most importantly the ‘creative mistakes’.  A little oddity, a tiny mistake, a misplaced drop of paint- these bring humanity to the work.  As the architect, Michael Graves wrote in the New York Times, “Drawings express the interaction of our minds, eyes and hands…I have a real purpose in making each drawing, either to remember something or to study something. Each one is part of a process and not an end in itself.”

While a computer drawing of one thing will look the same if copied by many different people, the drawing made of something by one person will be unique.  So yes, computers have their use in replication but the human spirit has its unique creativity.  So for now, I will be sticking to my drawing instruments that include amongst other things, a tooth brush, comb, chop sticks, and sand.