New paintings and regular art updates.
I was looking for a digital drawing to show a friend on zoom because I was trying to explain you can draw with a stylus on a drawing tablet, and without having to add layers. I drew this on sketchfu about ten year ago. This is a print off on paper. I have not got many printed versions of my digital drawings….
Today’s challenge was to draw cans for today’s #bandofsketchers challenge. Turns out a lot of things in my store cupboard was mainly coloured red. This was mostly coloured in with a watercolour pen that certainly zings. I’m not sure these are the actual colours, I was trying to take a photo in between bright sunshine and deep shade. The resulting photo was too dark so I had to adjust the exposure a bit to brighten it without making the red overwhelming, too be honest I still think it’s a bit bright.
If you are learning to draw have you tried drawing vanishing points yet? If you draw a horizontal line along the middle of a piece of A4 paper you can work out how to do three dimensional objects. Draw a dot somewhere along that line. Use a ruler and draw lines radiating from it. Then draw vertical lines up or down to them. Instant buildings in perspective. You can even use more than one vanishing point. For curved objects like a can or a glass it gives you a clue on how to draw curves and what direction they will be in. Generally upwards if you are looking from below the rim of a can and downwards if from above. It all depends on your eye level. The horizontal line in this exercise represents that. But it’s your choice. The line can be higher or lower (think of the view for a child, closer to the ground, or someone at the top of a bus!)
I used to also have fun drawing boxes with this, or alien buildings, or anything, I tried it with a horse once! You can use soft pencil to draw in the lines so you can erase them later, or use to mark out an object before you start a painting. It helps you sort out all types of things, including portraits or figures. Just play about with it.
I only suggested A4 as that gives you plenty of room…. You can use any size or type of paper.
My photoshop program is over ten years old. I keep using it but it no longer communicates with Adobe so I think it’s on the way out. I have the opportunity to get the new version, but I’m dithering. Is it worth it? Will I understand it? Has anyone got experience of it? Answers on a postcard please…. I guess I will have to bite the bullet because I do like my old version and I would like to keep using some form of it.
Drawing spirals calms me. Following the contours round. Sometimes I add a dot so that the line has to deviate around it. I used all my metallic pens for this, mainly silvers, a gold and a purple. I did have a green but it has almost run out. I think this looks a bit like a tree trunk, like dendrochronology. Tree rings that you can look at to see how old the tree is (the outer ring is the one which was current when the tree was cut down). If you count inwards then each ring represents a year generally. You can alsu tell by the thickness of the line. I know that’s not what my drawing represents, but it’s what I see when I look at it.
Xï
Green amaryllis bulb about to burst, the last years leaves still surviving in another pot and some darker green leaves in another pot. The living room reflected behind in the background. Today’s #bandofsketchers drawing this afternoon. I kept the colours to a minimum to emphasise the greens.
I took my tablet to a life drawing class a couple of years ago. I wanted to see what a digital drawing would look like. I chose to use a program called sketcher free that gives you different texture tools, like fur long fur, ribbon, chrome, and other pens. You can chose the background colour. You can also use a colour slider and picker and a change in pen sizes. It’s a bit complicated to choose a pen shape that translates to the drawing well. There are other programs that are simpler to use but I liked (as usual) the patterned effect I created.
A doodled mandala and adjustments in photodirector to add lens flare and playing with the drawn lines (gold and silver pens on black cartridge paper).
I wanted to cover the paper in patterns, it started out as a reasonably balanced pattern at the centre, but I soon went off on a tangent!
Played with colours and shading in this digital drawing (again done at sketchfu). A few years old. I’m pleased that this came up on my Facebook memories….
Does anyone else draw on the computer? Have you got any tips you could share?
Mallaband-Brown