Digital Painting

  • A featured image collage, showing various looping marks and drawing drills to practice line work. The background is digital, and on top are three photos of copy paper sheets with various drawing drill marks. Text top top states: Chaotic Drawing Drills.
    Digital Painting,  Drawing

    Chaotic Drawing Drills

    I’d paused posting in here for the later half of January 2024, as some very serious health issues have been happening to a close family member. That’s as much detail as I want to give here on my blog for now. How does one stay creative in times of extreme stress? Drawing drills have always been my go to, but even those have felt like a challenge. There are so many variations on drills, and they’re all meant to be very simple: draw ovals, practice line confidence, etc. Recently, I stumbled on a practice of outlining looping marks. The approach is very chaotic looking, but overall I’ve found it’s a…

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  • Featured image collage of five work in progress sketches of a female character with long wavy hair. She is wearing a wrinkled dress that ties at the neck and has long flowing sleeves. Text on the image states: Fumbling Through Sketching and Inking with Procreate.
    Digital Painting,  Figure Drawing

    Fumbling Through Sketching and Inking with Procreate

    Now that I am pretty well set on Procreate brushes (what with testing out all the default brushes and my mini-shopping spree on brush packs that followed), it’s time to put them to use! Alas, I’m still feeling clumsy and hesitant with my lines and this post shares my stop/start progress on this drawing from the last couple days.

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  • Collage of many images of squares of brush swatches, showing many different marks and blends of the different default brushes from Procreate. Text on the collage states: Trying Every Procreate Default Brush.
    Digital Painting

    Trying Every Procreate Default Brush – Test All the Brushes!

    This was a fun mini project for the beginning of the year and perfect for working on while I wasn’t feeling great. I promised myself I would try every default Procreate brush at least once, before allowing myself to buy custom brush sets. And oh, how motivating that was! I finished these relatively quickly over a few days, and it was very satisfying. I learned how to loosen up in my drawing approach on the iPad overall. So: now to share a ton of swatches with all the brush tests!

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  • An image collage of four digital paintings, showing wispy cirrus clouds in a blue sky. Text on the collage states: Digital Painting Clouds in Procreate. Cirrus clouds!
    Digital Painting

    Digital Painting Clouds in Procreate: Cirrus Clouds

    More cloud studies, but this time getting more comfortable with Procreate. As evidenced by my last post, my inner visual library of clouds is pretty stagnant: 99% puffy cumulus clouds. Here, I’m focusing on cirrus clouds instead: wispy and cold.

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  • Sketches of hands in black digital pencil brush on an orange and light teal gradient background. The hands are in different gestures of reaching or relaxed poses. One pose is of someone tying tennis shoes.
    Digital Painting,  Figure Drawing

    A Blargggh Type of Sunday

    I had a longer drive this morning coming back from visiting family, and the traffic was so very unenjoyable – people going way, way over the speed limit and weaving their cars across three or four lanes of the interstate, and several going quite under the speed limit. Like ugh, why. And usually traffic isn’t quite so bad the route I go, but all the lanes of the interstate felt packed with cars. Booo. And I didn’t have enough coffee this morning, which is my own fault. At least today was a D&D day, but my character was left off at the end of the game rolling death saves 🥲.

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  • Featured image of In Between series part 2 and 3. The left side shows a woman in purple hair wearing a pink dressing gown and holding a lit candle. The Right shows a similar woman with purple hair in a green and purple dressing gown, in a more detailed dark hallway.
    Digital Painting,  Illustration Series: In Between

    In Between – Part 3: Wandering the Halls

    I finished this third piece in the In Between series at the end of this past April. I used my iPad, but I am still fairly new to painting with it. I felt like I was fighting against the technology, and unsure of how to use it. Oh, and being indecisive about the color palette – that slowed me down quite a bit. 😅 I’ve bookmarked some online courses for Procreate, so perhaps I’ll get a bit less awkward soon.

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  • A digital painting of a woman relaxing on a lounge chair on an apartment balcony, in soft pastel colors. She is holding a cup of coffee and smiling.
    Digital Painting

    Cozy Morning Coffee

    Long time no blog. >_>*** The push and pull of inspiration versus procrastination. Whee! I’ve been making art (I even went to a drawing workshop, yay!), but I haven’t felt particularly inspired to write about the process. It’s been such a stop/start process, that I don’t feel like I’m improving the way or speed that I want. But let’s rip the bandage off quickly and just start blogging again! That’s the only way I’ve found to heal from procrastination: self-forgiveness and getting back to work.

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