is digital art a valid form of art?;

Art is the product of human creativity. In this context, art can be referred to as visual arts, an art form that is primarily visual. Visual art comprises of form and content. Form is the elements of art in the piece, the principles of design and the media used to create the artwork. Content is based on ideas - the meaning behind aspects of the artwork, how the artist has illustrated these ideas and how the audience responds to the ideas.

Digital art is disregarded as a valid form of art for the apparent fact that it is produced solely on a computer program or application. Most regard it as 'cheating' - that using its features to aid you reduces the credibility that the artwork is your own. But isn't anything visual that contain form and content regarded as art? Digital art is visual; it has form; it has meaning. Why not call it art?

It is true: the use of computer programs make creating an artwork convenient and ultimately, easier. This doesn't lessen the fact that digital art is still real art. In fact, as more and more things today are digitally based, digital art is becoming much more preferred. Aside from the fact that digital art is becoming more common, it has many great advantages, and is in some way better than the traditional oil on canvas.

It is convenient. There are tools that are appropriate to performing certain tasks that make an artwork better. Tools such as the blur and smudge tool are especially helpful in shading or blending colours. Even devices used for digital art such as the graphics tablet have pen pressure, which could give the lines varied thickness without the difficulty of constantly changing the brush sizes. One of my peeves when creating a traditional artwork is making mistakes and not being able to erase them. The best parts of creating an artwork digitally is the fact that your mistakes can be undone then redone.

Digital artists should have, at least, a basic understanding of their programs and its features. Like all artists (whether traditional or digital), they need to have an eye for deciding which techniques would work best.

Art is something skillfully constructed by artists. Digital art requires skill and basically everything a traditional artwork should have. Why not consider it art?