On holidays and birthdays, many young artists find themselves tearing apart wrapping paper to reveal a sketchbook, and over time that simple book will provide a space for them to develop the fundamentals of traditional art and a sense of creativity. But as digital art grows and the younger generations lean more online, that sketchbook might soon be accompanied by forms of online art applications.

According to Coherent Market Insights, North America holds the largest market for digital art. The digital artwork market size is estimated to triple in value from 2023 to 2030. This growth in popularity of digital art has made its way into Brookline High School art classes, where it is combined with traditional forms of art in an assortment of classes.

Art teacher Donna Sartanowicz has been teaching at Brookline for 21 years. She currently teaches the Artistic Books and Visual Journals class, but has taught Drawing and Painting in the past. Sartanowicz said that to be successful in either medium, the artist needs a similar skill set.

“Well, at a very basic level, they require the same skills. They require curiosity and attention. They require flexible thinking and inventiveness. They require you to notice the relationships between things and to organize that in a way that expresses your ideas,” Sartanowicz said.

From Traditional Drawing to Animation Intensive, art teacher Eric Latimer conducts a variety of classes. Latimer said that the choice between using digital and traditional art lies in the artist’s unique vision. Certain ideas may require a specific medium, however overlap is possible.

“They’re just different tools, really. It depends on the vision you have and what it is that you would like to pursue,” Latimer said. “If you are really fond of a particular look, let’s say it’s charcoal, it doesn’t make too much sense to use the computer, but then again, you could come up with filters and brushes that simulate charcoal.”

Sartanowicz said she doesn’t believe that traditional art and digital arts have to be competing. Similar to Latimer, she recognizes the medium is a choice for the artist to make. In regards to the future of art, Sartanowicz said she sees digital and traditional arts being fused eventually.

“It just depends on what it is that [the artist] wants to say,” Sartanowicz said. “So I don’t see any diminishment of traditional art or elevation of digital art as a competing thing.”

Junior William Hanaghan is currently taking the Advanced Portfolio Prep class and is creating a digital art portfolio. Although he prefers digital to traditional art, he said that traditional art provides foundations that can apply to all art forms.

“I think the traditional art benefits are you get the foundations down,” Hanaghan said. “And once you know those foundations you can build off of that. Some challenges of digital art is it never feels the same as actually painting something.”

However, Latimer’s classes use a combination of both traditional and digital art styles.

“I do try to bring together the traditional with the digital because together I think they’re strongest,” Latimer said. “The traditional style allows you to make that foundation, and the foundation can be enhanced and polished using some of the fantastic things that the digital software can give us.”

Hanaghan said that digital art can be easier for artists who lack traditional skills since the digital realm can be more forgiving.

“I think it’s easier to go back if you mess up digitally,” Hanaghan said. “But in my opinion, I find it easier because you don’t have to be super good at drawing since you can take stuff back more.”

Latimer said that within his classes, some students may use digital art as a crutch when making art because it can lessen the difficulty of the creative process.

“Know some of the basics like the elements of design, the principles of design and, and work very simply at first. Don’t try to go for these flashy effects. Those are okay once you have a good structure in place,” Latimer said. “One of the trends is to kind of think of the computer as like, cutting out all this work for me, and I think that that’s misleading because you want to be engaged.”

Sartanowicz said she noticed a surge in students’ interest for digital art, although it hasn’t taken away from the amount of traditional art practice at the high school.

“Well, we have seen an increase in students interested in digital art, that hasn’t diminished at all our requests for the traditional arts,” Sartanowicz said. “for the first time in many years, we’ve added staff to the high school and still all of our classes are full.”