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Resisting change is in human nature.  Well in marketing terms I could be classified as an enthusiast or an early adopter.  People take their own time to adapt to new things, because familiarity with the old gives us solace hence adoption curve will take time to climb as in the case of digital photography.  Every photographer worth his salt resisted the digital formats till Hasselblad and Sinar came up with digital backs, even I resisted till Nikon D90 happened. 

Purist will resist the “bastardisation” of any art form.  Human talent and craft rules supreme any intervention by machines or non-human is believed to contaminate art.  Each art moment faced this challenge be it Cubism, Dadaism or Expressionism.  This divine Apple’s intervention will also have its fair bit of resistance from purist.  Never before the digital software gave the gratification of real painting experience, where technology is invisible.  Thanks to the touch screen and tablet format, suddenly one gets instant gratification of drawing or painting. 

I have never tried to create art using digital technology in my life till iPhone happened a year ago, where I downloaded an app called “Fountain Pen” which allowed me to scribble on the screen, I loved it but never took it as serious art, while my friends from Twitter and Facebook insisted that indeed it was, when shared.  When I picked up my iPad last December on my son’s insistence to watch You Tube Videos and ads, I discovered many silly drawing apps which did not interest me till I stumbled upon “Art Rage” which blew my mind, it was like a live TED video and magic unfolding every second.  I looked at havens and adopted “Art Rage” instantaneously. 

What magic did iPad and Art Rage did on me? 

As I said before iPad gave me the gratification of real drawing and painting and further iPad allows me to carry my studio with me almost every where like a mobile phone.  Art Rage gave a complete studio of 2000 square feet with innumerable capacity to store canvases both painted and new, hundreds of tubes of colors free with infinite shades, entire sets of hog hair and sable hair brushes, palate and painting knifes, rollers etc, etc, all this lifetime supplies for a meager $7.00. 

Nothing is more tempting to a soccer player then seeing a still ball, and same is true to an artist, give an artist a white paper and ask him/her not to scribble?  Materials tempted me to carry on painting especially the oils, all this without the hassle of cleaning or arranging.  I painted close to 70-75 canvases in less than 40 days and did around 200 charcoal sketches, all this in normal process would have taken almost couple of years, what does this say to us?  At an average time of 3 hours for each painting it make you more prolific than any one can ever imagine! 

Technology is not helping art it’s just helping the artist, you still need to be a trained artist to paint even on a dame tablet.  Prolific art may cause a supply surplus in the market but on the other hand artist may actually see some money while they are alive.