So...today I went to my parents with the intent of hanging out with the kids and my other sister, she's a year younger than me. We don't usually hang out as much and when she does come up to my parents it's always with her kids or the hubby or both and it gets hectic, so I thought it'd be nice to have just her and we'd talk, hang, draw, I'd show her posemaniacs and the stuff I've been up to.

That was the plan.

I wound up getting to my parents about two hours later than I wanted to, mostly 'cuz I was feeling sick after I got up so I decided to lay back down for half an hour, that wound up turning into a much longer nap XD Either way it's not like they were waiting on me, my sister went to the supermarket with my mom and what not.

I'll spare you every last detail of the visit and instead I'll jus' concentrate on the one thing that seriously ticked me off.
Somehow, I don't remember how, but we got on the topic of art. Me, my mother, my dad, the boyfriend and my sister. Now when we were younger my sister was the artist and I was the writer, and I didn't mind, I liked art and all but I was never good at it, I always excelled at writing first. So I chose to go to a parochial highschool and my sister went to an art school but wound up dropping out for various reasons. My parents have always raised us to have an appreciation for art. When most 9 year olds were snickering at the sight of a half naked man or a woman in a skimpy top, my sister and I were lookin' through D ring binders of art cards featuring Vallejo, Frazetta, and Royo, among others. I guess what I'm trying to say is we weren't raised to be ignorant. We weren't raised to be closed minded; I got into roleplaying 'cuz my parents used to table top D&D every saturday night for years. Hell they used to go do vampire LARPS on weekends.

So....
When my sister looked at us and said "I'm sorry but digital art is easier than traditional art." , I got offended to say the least.

I said, very casually, uhm...no it's not. To which she replied in a matter of fact way that it was. Now I can understand, we have the almightly ctrl+z...okay, but it's not easier. And here's what really fried my eggs: her reasoning!

I asked her to give me an example of why digital art is easier than traditional art.

Reason 1: "Are you kidding me? You guys have a tool that smooths your lines out for you."
....what? Apparently she was talking about the pen tool. To which I explained it does draw smooth lines, but it still takes skill to use it. It took me an entire day and several tutorials just to figure out how to get the damn thing to stop creating new paths! Give me a pencil sketch and yea I can line it using the pentool, won't be perfect lemme tell you. It's gonna be a bit wobbly and definately blocky on the edges 'cuz I can never get the new paths to mesh together seamlessly.
Reason 1a: "You have to actually draw the lines smooth yourself with traditional art, the tool does it for you."
Right, 'cuz I click the pen tool and bam it's done. I can sit back and get a cup of joe 'cuz that's it. No, sweetheart, you still have to do the work. I can't draw a straight line to save my life. Pen tool sure as hell doesn't make it any easier. Now holding shift might >.>;

More reasons why digital art is "easier" than traditional art?

Reason 2: "You guys have all these different brushes and what not."
..........
So does a painter o.O; Here's the kicker, to which I reminded her, she used to work in an art supply store....how many shelves of brushes and tools used for acrylics or oils were there? I guess she meant the kind of brushes that have the flowers or birds. Okay, I've seen 'em, I've even tried using them, you can't jus' go *click* BIRDIES! If you want it to actually look like anything you have to go over that and add some detail work, some fine tuning. And of artists use their brushes for texturing more than as a "stamp", which is what I think she was looking at it as.

Reason 3: "You have a smudge tool to blend your stuff together, a painter doesn't have that."
.... Blending stump please? Tissue? Q-tip? Your fuckin' thumb? Fine you wanna say that's more for sketches or pencil work, what about paints? You paint over your mistake. That's a technique. And it's what I'm learning to do. My last piece, "Three", I used the erase less than a handful of times, and that was to shape the arms or something. If I made a mistake on the face, and believe me I did, I painted over it and moved on and tried again. Yea we have a smudge tool, you gonna say pencil art is easier than painting 'cuz they have a blending stump?

Reason 4: "You have an opacity button, we have to actually learn how to apply different amounts of pressure by hand."
*sigh* 9 out of 10 tablets use pressure sensitivity. Hell, I'm pretty sure my tablet is the only frackin 'one, whose never worked. I opened it and started it and pressure sensitivity was foreign to my tablet's language. And yes....we have an opacity setting. Do you know how long it took me to learn that painting with everything on 100% was not working too well? I now start on 60, and as I work I go from 60 to 30, to 20 to 10. And that's something you learn by doing, you don't just look at it and know to change the damn thing.

So after hearing these half-assed reasons and giving her responses and answers to them all in a span of about 10 minutes, she finally goes "well that's your opinion and I really don't care."
I finally had to tell her that what she said was the stupidest things I had EVER (and she's said some stupid shit lemme tell you) heard come out of her mouth. And I said it's not easier, and she gets into a huff and says she doesnt care and whatever and disappears to play Uno with the kids.

Now as for my opinion?
If I hadn't been painting for the past three years on a computer, starting with a mouse and then moving up to the tablet, then yea it'd be an opinion. But no, this is based on experience. It is not easier. In fact, there is no basis for comparison because they are two different mediums that's like saying watercolors are easier than using charcoal. Or, as my boyfriend aptly put it, saying it's easier to type a story than to write it with a pen.

Now that's what pissed me off.
What upset me is that she's my frackin' sister. She wasn't raised to be that stupid. Nor to sound that ignorant. On top of that not an hour before hand I had showed her my latest painting. Knowing now how she feels about my medium tells me that she has no respect for it. So really, how can she appreciate it? She used to draw on paper all the time. And when I was still living with my parents, she had used my tablet once or twice. Her art on paper and her art on the computer were two different things. Because, once again, two different mediums. Up until today, I really believed I couldn't draw on paper, I still can't lol. But I did that charcoal piece of Gudrek today, and what I learned using photoshop and what I learned watching the few livestreams I watched about painting over mistakes, I used for that sketch. And I know for a fact, I could not have done that three years ago. And I know in three years my digital art has improved greatly. And if, like my sister said, digital art is so easy, than any traditional art student can sit down at a computer and draw up a master piece. It will probably be good, very good inf act for a first time, but I doubt it will be as good as someone who's been doing it for years.

They're two different mediums with very different tools.

I'm tossed between being angry and upset. I can honestly say I looked at my sister and the only words in my head were "Do I know you?". On top of that, I really valued her opinion on my art. Because she was always the artist in the family. Because she went to an art school, albeit she didn't finish, she knew things I didn't. And even though she was my younger sister, only by a year, I actually kinda looked up to her in terms of her art and, unbelievably, her art knowledge. Now, it's like, I don't know. I have no interest in her opinion on my work anymore, knowing that she doesn't respect it. And really, she lost a decent chunk of my respect for her. She's done some stupid shit in the past, but that's with her life and those are her decisions and fine, I may not like her for them and I may have lost respect for her in smaller doses but today was just...it was pretty heartbreaking actually.

Not sure what else to say. Feel free to share your views on the subject, from whether you agree or not to just what she had to say and her reasonings, or what I had to say and my reasonings. You guys are all I have left now.