A Traditional Artist in a Digital World



A Tiny Artist 
Graphite pencil

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic at the moment, as its use and capabilities are creeping into more and more areas of all of our lives. While many industries and individuals are in favor of its growing presence, there are plenty of skeptics and warnings of caution, and artists,  in particular, are scrambling to protect their work and style from being used as fodder to train AI to be able to replicate their creations. As a result, it is becoming increasingly important and necessary to convey a sense of the person behind the art, which, ironically, is done primarily through the digital realm, in one way or another, and to varying degrees.

With the introduction and, ultimately, the pervasiveness of digital art, as well as AI-generated content, hand-rendered art and illustration is getting pushed more and more into a niche. Over my long career as a bookseller, with many years spent working with children’s books, I witnessed the rise in popularity of digital illustration, and the concurrent decline of traditional illustration, in real time. Now, as a traditional artist myself, whose influences harken back to the 20th century and even earlier (Beatrix Potter, E.H. Shepard, Ezra Jack Keats, Munro Leaf, and William Steig, as examples), it is all the more disheartening to see, as well as to experience, while pursuing opportunities within the field of children’s illustration.

However, according to a few recent industry-oriented blog posts and articles I’ve read, there are faint whisperings of a backlash to digitally-created art and AI. At least a few illustration agencies have expressed interest in taking on illustrators whose work is handmade. (Although, frustratingly, one agency noted that if the art is digitally created, they want it to look like it was done with traditional tools. As someone who likes things simple and straightforward, and whose work is actually done with traditional tools, to me this....perfectly encapsulates where we are, culturally, in the 21st century.)  

Despite the hurdles, I am hoping that my representation-seeking efforts will pay off this year, and an agent will see the potential in what I have to offer. Mine is, admittedly, not the illustration style typically seen on agency rosters these days, but, perhaps the very aspects of my work that make it different from the current trends will be viewed as an asset, when juxtaposed with the omnipresence of our digital age.


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