The dark side

Hi all,
So, Christmas and the new year have passed us by again. I'd like to say I had a great time but I didn't. Still, I won't go into that. The new year is well a truly here so there is a lot to look forward to now that the false expectations of Christmas are behind us.

I am going to carry on with my pencil work, but this year I'm determined to give digital painting a decent try. There are several reasons for this which I will go into in future posts but for now I'm  excited to show you how I'm getting on.

I treated myself to an ipad pro 10.5 inch for Christmas and my mother in law got me an apple pencil to go with it. After a lot of research I also purchased a app called Procreate which is about as good as painting apps get, in fact it is marvellous. I can't believe what you get for a tenner.

This was my first step in digital art, so I started off with something I could do easily with a pencil or paint. I had a quick go at doing a clematis flower.

This was a very quick sketch and I was pleasantly impressed by the ipad and the app. So, I thought I'd do another, this time a cherry.

Now considering I hadn't got much idea about what I was doing regarding the app, I was again very pleased with the result.

During my research about digital painting I came across an artist on youtube who had here reference photo on the same screen that she was painting on, so I thought I'd give that a quick try. I popped into the garden and picked a cyclamen leaf and photographed it. I then imported the photo into procreate to see if I could copy it.
The leaf on the top left is the photo and you can see my attempt at a quick copy.

Again this was just a quick sketch to see what could be done. If I had taken longer I'm sure I could have got a very close likeness.

So, obviously my first impressions of doing digital art are very good. I am hoping that I can give anybody who is thinking of taking the plunge into this media, a  flavour of what they can expect.

The cost of entry into digital is very high, for me it was almost £700. However, the ongoing costs associated with digital art are very low. Brushes, canvases, paper and paints etc will be no longere be required or will any of the other mirade of accessories we artist think we need.

There are lots of other benefits that go along with digital art and I'll tell you about some of them in a future post.

For now, please take a look at this picture. I did one last year in watercolour and the other a few days ago. Which do you prefer?

                                                             

 The one at the top is digital and the other is watercolour.

I have also started a youtube channel so that I can record my progress. Here is a link to my introductory video. I hope you enjoy it, any questions or comments please let me know.