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When I was at university, the internet was not yet part of our everyday lives. Even mobile phones were only just beginning to become common in Turkey. Many of the technologies we now take for granted didn’t exist then. It was difficult enough to imagine digital art reaching the point it has today, let alone predict how profoundly technology would change in such a short time.
My fine arts education was grounded in traditional techniques. Oil paint, pastels, watercolours, paper, canvas, and brushes formed the foundation of my relationship with art. They are still indispensable to me. Choosing to paint digitally doesn’t mean I’ve moved away from traditional methods or that I consider them inadequate.
But times change. Technology develops, ways of making things evolve, and perhaps we live in a world that consumes faster than ever before. In such a world, the value of time changes too.
This is one of the main reasons I’ve been drawn to digital art: to make better use of my time.
Time, Creation, and Freedom
When I talk about adapting to the times, I don’t mean that I should make digital art simply because everyone else is doing it. If I wanted to, I could still create all my works in oil paint. I haven’t abandoned traditional techniques.
But I do think time has become an increasingly important consideration in the creative process.
Today, people encounter an overwhelming number of images, ideas, and pieces of content. Everything is produced and consumed at extraordinary speed. In such a world, it isn’t easy for an artist to preserve their own rhythm. There is nothing artistically lacking in spending months on a single work. Still, when I spend a very long time on a painting, I sometimes feel as though the world outside is moving ahead without me.
I know that doesn’t mean I’m actually falling behind. I also know that art isn’t a race. Yet there is a subtle tension in that feeling.
For example, one of my recent digital works took approximately 25 days to complete. Had I painted the same composition in oils, at the large scale I imagined, it would probably have taken me months.
The point isn’t to produce more works in less time. What matters to me is how I use my time and energy while bringing the image in my mind to the point where I want it to be.
In that respect, working digitally gives me an enormous sense of freedom.
The Value and Limitations of Traditional Materials
Traditional painting techniques have a feeling all their own. The relationship between paint and surface, the physical presence of the materials, the rhythm of the process… I don’t take any of these things lightly.
But making art with traditional materials also comes at a considerable cost.
Of course, you don’t always have to use the most expensive supplies. But if you want to create a work that will last, I believe the materials need to meet certain standards of quality. With large-scale works in particular, those costs can become significant.
In digital painting, my basic tools are a tablet and a stylus. Together, they give me an enormous range of possibilities for expression.
I can change a line, erase it, draw it again, experiment with colours, or start over when I need to. I can do all of this without worrying about using up materials or irreversibly changing a surface.
I know that mistakes in traditional painting are instructive, too. In fact, they are an important part of an artist’s development. Over time, you come to understand your materials better and make more deliberate decisions.
But sometimes a work simply doesn’t satisfy you. I think many artists have finished paintings in their studios that they don’t want to exhibit. An artist can be critical of their own work, too.
In a digital environment, I can pursue the same exploration through more experiments, returning to earlier stages whenever necessary. To me, this isn’t merely a technical convenience; it allows me to experience the creative process more freely.
It Still Begins on Paper
I paint digitally, but the first step of my work doesn’t happen on a screen.
I have a sketchbook.
Before beginning a painting, I draw the thoughts, images, and possible compositions forming in my mind in that book. Working with paper, pencil, and eraser isn’t simply a habit for me; it’s a process that sets my creativity in motion.
I’ve tried sketching on a tablet, but I couldn’t establish the same connection. Developing my first ideas on paper is more satisfying. As I draw, new ideas emerge, some figures change, and the composition begins to move in another direction.
There is usually a story in my paintings. But that doesn’t mean everything follows a script decided in advance.
At first, a story takes shape in my mind. Then it develops alongside the drawing. The characters influence the story, and the story transforms the characters. Sometimes one leads the other. Eventually the composition comes together, and colour begins to shape the atmosphere of that world.
For me, then, digital painting isn’t a break from traditional ways of making art. My creative process still begins with something very familiar: a thought, a sheet of paper, and a pencil.
Where Does Artificial Intelligence Fit Into This Process?
Today, digital art and images generated with artificial intelligence are often treated as though they were the same thing. But in terms of how I work, there is an important distinction.
Describing an image in your mind to an AI system through written prompts and having that system generate an image is not the same process as drawing digitally. Of course, AI-generated images can subsequently be worked on, altered, and developed in other programs. But we need to recognise that these are different ways of working.
I don’t dismiss the possibilities AI offers artists. On the contrary, I use it in my own practice.
But its role in my work is not to create the finished artwork for me. It helps me during certain preparatory stages.
As I develop a composition from my sketchbook, I often already have particular colours and an atmosphere in mind. This is where I especially make use of AI. Starting with my own sketch, I can try different colour palettes and see how light, shadow, and the relationships between colours change the composition.
With traditional methods, exploring several colour options for one sketch might mean drawing the same image several times. You can’t always remove a colour from paper completely if you don’t like it.
AI-assisted tools speed up that stage of research. I can look at alternatives, change colours, and keep experimenting until I get closer to the atmosphere I have in mind.
But there is something I particularly want to emphasise:
The preparatory image I obtain with the help of AI is not my finished artwork.
After that, I move on to the digital drawing process. As I draw, I may change the colours again, develop the lines, or reconsider a character’s appearance or certain elements of the composition.
In other words, the decisions I make during preparation don’t have to be final. The work continues to live and change as I draw it.
For me, AI is a tool for research and experimentation. It doesn’t replace the artist’s imagination, decisions, or creative process.
What Working in Layers Makes Possible
One of the things I find most appealing about digital painting is the ability to work in layers.
With oil painting, working between layers sometimes requires patience. The paint may need to dry before the surface is ready for another intervention. That waiting is part of the nature of the technique.
Digitally, I can work on different layers independently.
Sometimes I move to another layer before finishing the one I’m working on. That’s because something I want to see in a later layer may influence the decisions I make about the earlier one.
For example, while developing one part of a composition, I may want to see the colours, lighting, or relationships between figures in another part. Then I can return to the first layer and reassess it.
That flexibility suits the way I work.
The freedom digital painting gives me isn’t about expressing my ideas with less effort. It’s about being able to explore them more comfortably through different possibilities.
Where Artistic Satisfaction Comes From
For me, there is absolutely no difference in the satisfaction I feel when I finish an oil painting and when I finish a digital one.
Because the source of that satisfaction isn’t the material. It’s the act of creating something.
A thought that began in my mind becomes a work I have spent time on and can finally feel satisfied with… That’s where the feeling comes from.
And this approach isn’t limited to painting.
I’ve also worked in architectural design for many years. When I began my career, today’s AI tools didn’t exist. Working with three-dimensional modelling and visualisation software could mean spending a great deal of time on lighting, shadows, textures, and realism.
I still model my projects in programs such as 3ds Max and V-Ray, preparing materials and the basic visual settings. But I can now also use AI-assisted tools to develop certain details, improve lighting and texture effects, or turn an image into a video.
My thinking is the same here: technology doesn’t take precedence over what I want to create. By simplifying some technical tasks, it allows me to devote more time to the design itself.
Even this conversation is an example. I could have spent hours arranging sentences and paragraphs to turn my thoughts into an article. Instead, I spoke about them, and technology helped give those thoughts a written form.
But the thoughts, experiences, and things I wanted to express are mine.
That is exactly the relationship I have with technology.
Why Don’t I Explain the Stories Behind My Works?
There are stories in my paintings. But I don’t want to explain those stories to the viewer.
Because they come from my inner world.
I prefer not to write beneath a work what it means, what each figure represents, or what the viewer is supposed to see.
I’m not a writer. I’m a visual artist. If I wanted to tell my stories in words, perhaps I would have chosen writing. I tell them visually.
What I see when I look at a painting doesn’t have to be what someone else sees. In fact, it will often be different.
A viewer might notice a relationship I never noticed. They might find an entirely different emotion in a figure. Drawing on their own experiences, they may construct a story completely unlike the one I had in mind.
I think this is one of the most valuable aspects of the relationship between a work and its viewer.
That’s why, rather than explaining the stories behind my paintings, I want to leave room for people to form their own interpretations.
As an artist, I can share my thoughts and my methods. But that’s not the same as telling someone how a work should be read.
Is a Digital Artwork Worth Less?
I think one of the most important debates around digital art concerns artistic value.
Even today, many people consider an oil painting more valuable than a work drawn digitally. Some assume that a digital painting can be produced very quickly, in just a few steps.
But working digitally doesn’t mean a work has no intellectual or creative process behind it.
A work may involve sketches, experiments, decisions about composition, colour studies, drawing, revisions, and a long period of work.
I know how my own artworks come into being. I know the stages they pass through, the decisions I make, what I change, and how much work it takes to arrive at the final result.
For that reason, I don’t see an inherent hierarchy of artistic value between a digitally drawn work and an oil painting simply because of the technique used.
Of course, their physical characteristics, methods of production, and materials are different. But those differences don’t automatically make one more valuable than the other.
Throughout human history, I think many new things have initially been met with hesitation. People sometimes need time to understand methods they aren’t familiar with.
I believe digital art is going through a similar period today.
I expect that perspective to change in the years ahead. As people gain a better understanding of how digital works are made, I hope they will become less inclined to judge them solely by the tools used.
But for me, the value of digital art won’t suddenly come into existence when it gains wider acceptance. That value is already there.
What needs to change is the way we look at it.
Conclusion: Changing Tools, the Same Desire to Create
I was trained in traditional painting techniques, and I continue to work with them today. My oil paintings, acrylic paintings, and digital works are not separate parts of my artistic practice; they complement one another.
What matters to me isn’t which technique I’m using, but what I can bring into being through it. Sometimes I’m standing in front of a canvas with paint; sometimes I’m sitting in front of a screen with a digital stylus. In both cases, I’m engaged in the same creative search.
I don’t see digital art as a replacement for traditional art. I see it as another space I’ve opened up for myself to express what I imagine. It gives me room to develop my ideas, explore different possibilities, make changes, and work towards the result I want.
An idea that begins with paper and pencil can develop on a canvas or on a digital screen. Materials, methods, and working conditions may change. But at the centre of it all, one thing remains unchanged for me: the desire to create.
Because what defines me as an artist isn’t the tool I use, but my need to create.
And whatever technique I work with, the feeling I have when I finish a piece is the same:
The satisfaction of making something that existed in my mind visible.
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