What is digital art and is it right for you? Here's everything you need to know

'What is digital art?' might seem a question with a simple answer. It's art created using electronic tools and systems rather than traditional media like pen on paper, paint on a canvas or a chisel on stone. That makes it a very broad term, covering everything from 2D pixel art to CGI, photorealistic 3D art, algorithmic art, digital replications of traditional art and much more.

But pinning down a definition of digital art gets more difficult as the lines between traditional vs digital art become blurred. Some artists who made their names in the former have transitioned to digital work, from David Hockney to Takashi Murakami, Damien Hirst and Rachel Whiteread.

Meanwhile, some art inhabits both spheres. There are artists capture photos or 3D scans of physical work and then use digital tools to enhance the pieces or create virtual replicas. And artists can also create art digitally and then print it to develop it further using physical media.

In this piece, I'll explore what digital art is, and look at some examples of different types of digital art as well as how digital art is made (see our pick of the best digital art software and the best drawing tablets for ideas for your own setup).

What is digital art?

In the broadest sense, digital art is any art that was created using digital technology. This can range from digital painting to animation and 3D work for games, metaverse art exhibitions and immersive VR experiences as well as photography and video created using digital cameras. As there as some form of digital technology was involved in its creation, we can consider it to be digital art (we might have different opinions on whether it's all art, but that's another matter).

Some digital art can be printed to be displayed like traditional work in a physical exhibition, or it may be exhibited digitally on websites, social media or in virtual exhibits in the metaverse. Traditional art can also be converted to digital formats to display in virtual settings.

Some digital art is also intended to be interactive. Allan Kaprow’s performance piece Hello (1969) is often cited as a seminal work. This pre-internet 'tele-happening' involved television studios in different cities allowing people to interact with each other while Kaprow controlled sound and visual aspects, predicting a world of instant communication.

What's the history of digital art?

It might seem like digital art is a new phenomenon, and software like Photoshop and Procreate has made it more accessible, but it has a long history. Artists began using tablets to draw on computers in 1960s. Ivan Sutherland’s Sketchpad, released in 1963, can be seen as a predecessor's of today's CAD software.

From the mid-1960s, 'computer art' became a common term as artists with a knowledge of computer science, such as Frieder Nake and Harold Cohen, began to use algorithms to generate images based on a combination of logic and chance.

In 1981, the Quantel Paintbox was launched as a all-in-one machine for digital art, and was used by big TV studios. The cost made it inaccessible for non professionals, but soon, the rapid expansion of personal computers gave many more artists to access to tools for digital tools. New types of art emerged too, intended specifically for the digital world, including pixel art and game art.

In the 1990s, the internet provided new ways to share and experience digital art. Social media later expanded this further, giving anyone an outlet for their work. Digital art also began to merge with other media, and advances in technology allowed more advanced 3D modelling and the creation of art for virtual and augmented reality.

Types of digital art

Digital drawing and painting was one of the first forms of digital art to emerge. This can look similar to traditional art but using a stylus and tablet or one of the best laptops for drawing instead of a pencil and sketchbook or paint on a canvas.

Digital drawing can be more flexible than working in physical media because you can add layers, details and colours at the click of a button. Layering and 3D functionality adds more creative freedom and versatility. For examples, see our piece on digital artists for inspiration.

Animation is another popular form of digital art. Since Fred Parke and Pixar-founder Edmund Catmull's 1972 short film A Computer Generated Hand, animators have used digital software to replicate traditional animation techniques and taken them further with 3D animation. Since the early 2000s,, most animation is done digitally. See our pieces on animation styles and the best animation software.

Concept art involves bringing a story to life visually. It's to envision characters, locations, scenes and concepts for movies and games. Concept artists translate a brief or script into visual sketches that explore and communicate ideas and atmospheres to help directors, producers and game developers visualise a story early in the process and align their creative vision with 3D artists, animators and set designers. The emphasis is often on quick iteration to explore ideas rather than creating perfect finished pieces.

Algorithmic art is created by computers themselves. Instead of using digital tools the way a traditional artist would use physical ones, the artist programs rules for a computer program to follow. In this sense, the artist can have an influence over the general direction and limitations of the output but does not make any marks themselves.

More recent developments in AI art have developed these ideas further. Artists like David Salle have trained AI models on their own work and had them generation new compositions based on their style.

3D art is used in visual effects, video games, animation, product design, and increasingly in immersive VR and AR experiences. Software like Blender has made it much easier to get into 3D modelling, in which objects are built using polygons, curves or sculpting tools before surface textures and lighting are applied (see our guide to the best 3D modelling software and our roundup of up the best 3D art).

The artist Ed Atkins (above) creates video installation using highly realistic CGI avatars, exploring the limits between digital representation and physical experience.

Pixel art is most associated with retro games consoles that used 8-bit and 16-bit graphics, and with teletext art. Many think of it as a golden era of game art history, giving us the likes of Pac-Man and Mario, but there are still artists that use the technique today. Working on a grid at the pixel level requires a lot of precision, and many artists use limited colour palettes to respect the limitations of early computer graphics – see our roundup of pixel art examples.

Digital photography is now everywhere. Many people have a camera phone, and most phones have fairly sophisticated editing software, allowing anyone to become a digital artist. The huge advantage is not having to go through rolls of film, but digital photography also expanded the ways in which photos can be enhanced and manipulated. Video has evolved in the same direction.

A big trend in digital art in recent years was the sudden (and short) boom in non-fungible tokens (NFTs), using blockchain technology to verify the ownership and authenticity of a digital artwork. By allowing artists to tokenise their digital creations, it transformed the way art is bought, sold, and collected and opened access to art markets for more people. NFT art is still very much a thing, but there was an inevitable market collection after the 2021 boom, which saw a lot of speculation, driven by flippers, hoping to sell work for a profit.

Artificial intelligence is also having a massive impact on digital art and is changing how many digital artists work. There are fears that AI will replace some jobs in digital art. Some sources of work like stock illustration are being automated. There are also unresolved issues around copyright.

But while AI may be able to mimic styles, it can;t be truly original or understand things like context and emotional depth. Artists' lived experience, expert curation and personal storytelling and commentary are things that AI cannot meaningfully replicate. Meanwhile, AI also opens new frontiers for experimentation in digital art.