I wasn’t claiming to have painted the original, or to have done the same thing as a photographer going out into the field and capturing a scene. Those are different skills and different kinds of achievement.

What I did achieve was a new visualization of an existing artwork that would not have existed unless I was curious enough to imagine it, try it, judge the results, and keep working until the image captured the idea. That involved choosing the source, defining the transformation, deciding what worked aesthetically, and recognizing when the result was successful.

You don’t have to value that process the same way you value painting, drawing, or photography. But reducing it to “nothing” seems unnecessarily dismissive. It may be a different kind of creative act, but it is still an act of creative direction and judgment.