When is it art and when it is stealing?  I have a friend that does some great digital work.  Yet she will admit she can't even draw a line... she takes photos an morphs them to look like oils and then sells the prints.  I'm sorry I don't see the art in pushing the mouse around and clicking a few plug-in...  She has passed her stuff off as real art, even sell all the top celeb's.  She has been getting 35$ a pop and it tick me off becasue I'm sure people think they are getting something special.

What do you think is it art or something else?

I would have to agree with you on that one. It seems to me that people would want to know what they have just purchased. I myself would never do something like that but I also do kow of people who do.

Doing this with celebs is very risky.
Doing what she does is legal... if it are her OWN photos and she doesn't tell how they are made. If she claims they are oils it's not legal. I wonder how people can think it's real though... photoshop filters are often pretty obvious. Oils are also very thick, so if you get the original, you see it's printed and there is no paint on it.

By the way...there's a very interesting case currently. A woman named Sheryl Luxemberg (I may be off on the spelling) copied and combined two images purchased as stock photography and won a major watercolor award and several thousand dollars in cash. Her technique is described as hyper-realism. Turns out that's more accurate than anyone expected.

In her artist's watercolor portfolio she has several images (including the two I mentioned above) that are exact copies of stock images.

The bottom line is that you are never allowed to pass off copyrighted work as your own...whether it's an exact copy or a derivation...so she's apparently in some heavy trouble with the American Watercolor Society. As soon as this all broke Luxemberg's portfolio website "vanished" from the Internet. :-) Oops.

This info may not apply precisely to the original question in this forum...but it's interesting just the same.

So...to the topic at hand....

I know several people who create "digital paintings." They don't try to fool anyone and the clients know they are getting something made from pixels, not paint. Why not just come clean (for your friend) and be clear about what she is doing? let the art stand on its own merits. I can't imagine it would diminish the value. As long as they are her photos to begin with, she should be in great shape.

Scott/Creatista

Any news on what happened to this lady?

Any creative thing can be called as an art. Your friend must have good art skills to convert them in to a profitable business. Sometimes it is considered as a wrong thing to do.

Part of me totally agrees, but the other part of me isn't so sure that this is cut and dried stealing if she isn't trying to turn a profit from the image itself.

Would that make a difference in how you feel about it?

Posted By manojjonam10 on 21 Oct 2008 05:41 PM
Any creative thing can be called as an art. Your friend must have good art skills to convert them in to a profitable business. Sometimes it is considered as a wrong thing to do.

Very true, when any one does any creative thing it is called art and when it is turned for profit making it is called business. But i don't mind business prospective of art as this is a good way to reward the artist.