More Life Drawing

I'm continuing to work digitally in the Open Life Drawing Studio at Visual Arts Mississauga. I think it's really pushing me to improve my digital drawing and painting skills. A few examples from tonight's session, all done using SketchBook Pro and a Wacom tablet.

The Digital Life

I realize I haven't posted here for quite some time, but this seems like a good opportunity. I decided the time had come, and last night I took my computer and tablet to the Open Life Studio at Visual Arts Mississauga. Wow, was I ever pleased with both the results and the potential for the future.

It's a very different feel, working on a tablet with an active area of about 5 1/2" x 9" compared to an 18" x 24" pad on an easel. One of the advantages I was hoping for was to be able to do something more painterly in the longer last pose without the fuss of setting up painting materials and clean-up afterwards. It also meant a very easy switch between "tools," so I was able to move back and forth between pencil, marker, pen and wash. It made for a varied evening.

All of these examples were made using a Wacom Intuos Pro medium tablet and SketchBook Pro 6. Let me know in the comments what you think.

Digital Figure Study

I continue to play around with painting in Photoshop, and I finally have a figure study I'm not embarassed to share. This is actually the third version of this image. I decided that I really needed to push the colour and texture a little to create a little more interest in an otherwise monochromatic painting, so I banged in some greens, blues and purples and massaged them into the original warm oranges and browns. A lot of this is experimenting and playing with the various brushes and settings that are available in Photoshop. I think it has a bit of that trashy paperback/pulp look from the 50s and 60s. Kinda fun...

My Fall painting class has started, so there should be some posts of acrylic landscapes again soon. But I'm not giving up on the digital world!

Different Strokes

Is painting in the digital realm still painting? I think so, and as I work to improve my skills  in that arena I will occasionally post my progress here. As an illustrator I have allowed myself to slip out of the mainstream, which is more and more digitally based. So, time to pull up my socks and get to work.

Actually, I have been working on this tangent in a fairly focused way for the past month, and I finally have an image I'm prepared to post.

This was produced in PhotoShop 7 with a Wacom Bamboo tablet. I only used the basic soft and hard brushes and the eraser tool. This is just a study, a sketch, but in the face I think I've managed to capture a real painterly quality.

I'll keep at it, and I hope the next post will have some colour in it. Cheers.