Art at 30,000 Feet
- Artemis Gurnsey
- May 28
- 3 min read
Digital Isn’t Lesser: Swapping Out Your Canvas for an iPad
A continuation of my recent post on my journey with Digital Art on Instagram
You know what still gets to me?
The way people look at digital art — like it’s not real.
Worse, they lump it in with AI-generated content, as if I just press a button and let a machine spit something out.
But here’s the truth:
I’m drawing.
Just on an iPad instead of an art pad.
I’m painting.
Just on a screen instead of a canvas.
It’s not until someone watches me work — whether in Procreate, IbisPaint, or any other app — that they finally understand.
Until they see the strokes, the layering, the decisions.
Until they realise how much time, thought and care goes into every piece.
And I haven’t exactly helped myself with that.
We live in a world that wants everything now.
They want your two hours crammed into a two-second reel.
They laugh with a “lol,” they love with a double tap, and they measure time by how long it took for them to scroll by.
So I speed up my five ten-hour days of work to the speed of light, and wait to be liked by faceless friends and silent strangers...
Digital tools aren’t shortcuts — they’re just tools.
Yes, they make parts of the process smoother: no paint to mix, no brushes to rinse.
But every colour, every brush, every texture still needs a hand — my hand — to bring it to life.
You still need skill. You still need vision.
Tools don’t make the artist — the artist makes the tools matter.
Art at 30,000 Feet
Some of my favourite pieces were created mid-flight — iPad in hand, strangers glancing over curiously.
That’s the gift of digital art: flexibility.
But creativity? That comes from within.
And yet, even when people find out I also paint traditionally, I get comments like:
“Oh… not oils?”
As if acrylics are somehow “lesser,” too.
Why are we still measuring artistic worth by materials?
You don’t see the 16-hour painting sessions.
The hundreds of micro-adjustments.
Some pieces take 10 hours because I’ve honed my process — others take days or weeks, even months at times.
Just like with traditional painting.
And still, people say:
“Oh, it’s just digital. That must’ve been easy.”
It’s not “just digital.”
It’s designed. Considered. Created.
Stroke by stroke. Layer by layer.
The Transition
I’ll admit — I didn’t always respect digital art either.
Not until I picked up an Apple Pencil in 2019.
Before that, I worked in acrylics, watercolours, pen and ink, Copic markers, coloured pencils — I lived in the traditional world.
So when I moved to digital, I brought those habits with me.
In the beginning, I didn’t know brushes could auto-stipple — I was still placing every dot manually.
Now? When I switch back to canvas or paper, I catch myself double-tapping to undo or pinching to zoom.
That’s how natural it’s become.
But the core is the same: I still draw. I still imagine. I still create.
Not AI
Let’s clear something up:
Digital art is not AI.
I create my work.
AI generates. It scrapes from existing artists, mashes ideas together, and outputs something "new" — without ever learning the craft or actually creating any of the material, AI basically finally stitches and photoshops a collage, but it didn't create any of it.
Some artists may use AI to brainstorm or visualise ideas, or dreams — that’s different.
But typing a sentence into a generator and calling yourself an artist? Just no.
This isn’t about gatekeeping.
It’s about honouring the process.
Art requires more than output.
It takes foundation. Intuition. Patience. Time. Soul.
Whether it’s oil or acrylic, pencil or pixel —
The medium doesn’t define the art.
The artist does.
Digital art isn’t fake and it isn’t easy.
And it's definitely not lesser.
It’s just a different canvas.
A different kind of brush/tool.
It’s still art.
And I’m still the artist.
With Love,
Artemis
Comments