Where's the art?

Working with agencies, sometimes you just end up wondering where the traditional art skills have gone. With Photoshop, CorelDraw, Painter and Illustrator around, chances are that the next illustration or painting or random piece of 2D art you see has not been drawn by hand.

I just saw this article today and realised its so true even for people who are not inexperienced students. Take a look at designers/visualizers/illustrators in agencies here who have more than 5-6 years of experience on large campaigns. Do any of them still draw their illustrations themselves? Or NOT scan them in and touch them up in Corel or Illustrator?

Students are more comfortable manipulating computer graphics than doodling, drafting and drawing with pen on paper, and this has created a sharp decline in drawing skills in recent years, teachers say.

Additionally, tech-savvy students simply lack the initiative and persistence developed by drawing, resulting in uninspired work--at least work on paper.

What's even more astounding is that people (like in the article above) are complaining about students losing their drawing skills! In India, except for a talented few, that actually might be a good thing! Taught illustration styles at least 50 years outdated, most of the art school graduates and post graduates that get into agencies automatically realise that their drawing skills are nowhere near what the world has begun to expect in terms of style and quality.

And then tools like Photoshop, CorelDraw, Painter and Illustrator are brought into the picture, to help dull illustrations look more interesting, to edit out lines and mistakes and to colorize and close nodes. Is this faster than traditional drawing and illustration? Yes. Does it need as much skill? Not really.