Luckily today composing pixels to look like real art materials is now only a secondary concern for me. Today's hardware and software make this challenge of yesterday almost effortless. Years ago I had to struggle to make electronic pictures appear as art, to feel like art. Today sophisticated software, like Fractal Painter, ooze the look of paint straight out of the box. No personal software adjustments is necessary to get the medium crossover right.
Mimicry is guaranteed by the default values set by the programmer.
Suddenly everybody's works looks more convincingly artistic, but at the expense of a convergence of everybody's work towards a common fine arts solution. The computer is a powerful tool which can lead me to discover unique imagery impossible with other art media. With my since adopted psychology and philosophy for making art, my intent is to produce new sensations that trigger new experience, even awareness of the self, for the spectator.