My First Time: Drawing Digitally

I'll be honest, I have always been a bit hesitant about the idea of creating a piece of art digitally.

In the past, I had tried a couple of times to create design assets on a Sketchpad but soon after I got frustrated with the process and convinced myself I simply didn't understand how to use the tool. Overall, it took me way too long to create what was, in my head, so simple. Also, the end product did not look that great.

But of course there's more to the story, otherwise it would be the end of this blog post. Spoiler alert: I did manage to create several pieces I was proud of! And yes, I actually enjoyed it very much.

How it started:

For several years now, I'd seen people using Procreate to sketch, paint, or animate their art. It definitely intrigued me, because in comparison to using a Sketchpad, I felt like drawing on an iPad with a pen would allow me to have more control over my brush strokes and the techniques I planned to use. So with an open mind, I started scribbling on the blank page, switching from brush to brush and color to color.

How it's going:

If there's one thing you should know about me and my art, it's that I really have no personal style, and my pieces are ever-changing. I admire a range of art styles and the most exciting part of my artist journey right now is mastering and exploring the different techniques. This ranges from experimenting with my subject, use of color, techniques, textures, and medium. Every month or so I find myself looking for inspiration from a new artist. It always starts with me being intrigued about how they went about creating their work, then dissecting step-by-step how they achieved it, and finally doing a study of it.

As you can imagine, trying out Procreate with its limitless tools and color choice- I felt like a kid in a playground. The first time using it I sat down for hours trying to understand the endless brush selection and attempting to master the level of pressure exerted on the pen to mimic my favorite flat brush oil painting technique. (I was very fixated on figuring that out, because if anything my flat brush strokes are my signature moves!)

However, I quickly decided that creating digital art didn't mean I had to mimic what I could create the traditional way, with a paint brush and some paint. Plus, I wouldn't want to be able to - it would lose all its magic for me! Instead, I took it upon myself to challenge my patience and creativity to see what I could create without being limited by anything.

So below are a couple of things I created in the past few days alongside short reflection notes of what I thought of each piece.

I'm my biggest critic and still see these as highly unpolished pieces of work, but hey it's a start!

Here's my first attempt at creating an animated image. I got so excited when I discovered you could animate on Procreate! Kind of weird, but I've always had this fixation with creating dripping images, and it was what I initially tried to create on Sketchpad but failed. Overall, I love the color combination and felt very satisfied to be able to tick off completing this dripping animation!

This is a very classic Punn piece. Spent a lot of time figuring out the brush strokes and color combination, but very pleased with the end result! P.S. Do you see how realistic the paint drops are? I'm in shock.

Fashion sketches are back! I am obsessed with creating these on Procreate. I might even go as far as saying that I prefer it over sketching on paper! It gives me great flexibility to really experiment, and 'undo' any design mistakes I made. Feeling inspired to create more collections.

Sketching is also really fun. Maybe you can tell a bit but I didn't realize at first that you could also do quite some shading. All it took was angling the tip of the pen and applying a bit more pressure. I was very pleasantly surprised by this.

Having some fun. Initially I was going to create a painting of an eye, using fun color combinations, however I discovered the liquify tool and went to town and create this very trippy piece. Would not have been able to achieve the same effect if I approached it the traditional way.

Now what?

If it wasn't already clear enough, I'm having a lot of fun with Procreate, and I'm looking forward to exploring other apps to see what else I can create. No, it will never be able to replace painting the traditional way for me, there is something so special and magical about getting paint all over my clothes and the disgusting smell of turpentine. But overall, very excited to see what this means for my chapter in creating digital art pieces.

Punn