Blog
The Virtual Canvas: Storytelling in the Digital Era
August 01, 2025
Star McNeal, Afro-Sea, digital painting, 2024.57.2.
Allyson Haller, The Process, digital mixed media, 2005.286.1.
Jesselyn Kanniainen, Camping at Night, digital
illustration, 2021.59.1.
Rebecca Mills, Untitled #3, digital illustration, 2011.119.1.
Matt Nemecek, Jester, digital illustration, 2016.25.4.
Artists often play the role of storyteller. They have been the illustrators of important social, cultural, and religious narratives that have historically been passed down over generations. Artists have also used storytelling as a tool to drive concepts that share and interpret their own lived experiences with others. Today, digital tools present new ways to enhance our narrative experiences.
A digital illustration, or digital painting, is a work of art created using digital software that simulates traditional painting, drawing, or mixed media techniques. These digital tools create art directly from the artist’s hand through a program that translates the movement on the digital screen. As other artists use pencils or paintbrushes to create, digital illustrators use their mouse or stylus to create their works of art. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, along with other digital programs like Procreate, include pen, pencil, and brush stroke tools to assist the artist in creating various textures and layers, creating effects that are limitless.
Digital programs allow for the layering and manipulation of different types of media. Artists may draw or paint images on paper and then scan them into a program, converting the scans into digital images in order to manipulate and enhance their work with digital techniques, or add in other digital images or photographs.
During the 2025 Fall semester, the GVSU Art Museum will be showcasing an exhibition that features artwork either created with technology, like digital illustrations, or incorporates technology in a way that enhances the viewer’s experience. The exhibition, Stories Reimagined: Artistic Narrative in the Digital Age, brings together the creative work of artists whose work joins together threads of memory, imagination, myth, reflection, and creative expression and is further nuanced by audio, video, and digital animation or manipulation.
For more information about the exhibition and related events, check out the Stories Reimagined website!
Check out other digital works of art in the GVSU Art Museum Collection!