I pride myself on being “old school” when it comes to creating my drawings. You know, pens, ink, pencils and good old fashioned paper. The closest I’ve got to digital wizardry is taking images of my work with my phone and chucking them through a photo app.
Until now.
Fab artist Rosie Scribblah has recently posted up some sketches created on her tablet and they’re great! Take a look. Unlike me, Rosie is a real artist who works in a studio and stretches canvas, daubs acrylics and even etches! So I thought if Rosie’s giving it the thumbs up I’ll have a go.
Smudging around on the tablet with your finger is not dissimilar to messing with charcoal and pastel, but a hell of a lot cleaner. I have a nexus 7 and the app is Sketcher. A very basic app, but then I’m a very basic artist. This was my first attempt; the first two images are the progression and the last one was after a bit of photo digi-thingy.
Spooky Elf child
I have to warn you there are more of these because it turns out Digital Doodling is FUN. It won’t replace my fine liner pens or super soft pencils but it’s certainly an interesting alternative medium. I’d love to know what you think.
Has anyone else set aside their sketch pad for an iPad?
Ziggy Shortcrust 
Claps hands with glee….love them all but surprisingly especially the first one.. and Rosie is great too isn’t she 🙂
Sometimes it’s best to know when to stop mucking about with a drawing.
Rosie’s work is fabulous.
I go through this debate all the time…! I always see really cool things done on tablets/digital and think… oh, I should do that (especially because I am SO INDECISIVE when it comes to color… lines… composition… EVERYTHING ahaha. But then I always stop myself, for fear that I’ll get too lazy. :<<.. I think for someone who has a solid background in physical mediums (definitely you!) only good things can come out of digital art. ❤ I also really love the first one!
I guess it’s just another tool to get your creative ideas out of your head. I certainly couldn’t be as precise with this as I can with an ink pen. But that made it more of a challenge and prompted me to work in a different way. Give it a go & see what you get.
I like them all…do me a favor and stop saying you are not a real artist. Your fantasy of what makes a “real artist” seems a bit skewed. 🙂
Sorry 😦
But I do love a good fantasy.
The last one for me!
Ah…thank you.
I have to admire anyone that has such a brilliant talent, coming from parents that can draw and weeping over the fact that I just can’t put pen to paper or pencil and come up with anything that might look like anything lol. I love the pictures, but I’m a real believer in there is nothing like having a picture/painting that you can touch and feel 🙂
Absolutely to the touchy feely. Of course these can be printed out any way one likes I suppose.
I can’t help thinking that if some of the great art Masters had had the opportunity of using digital they might have been tempted to have a go. It is just another medium to use. Even Watercolourists used to get tut tutted by those using oil!
You’re absolutely right. It’s just another medium to experiment with.
I think a drawer will draw with whatever is available. I like your spooky elf child very much. Kudos for having a go at something different. The spooky elf child appears (to me) to have a delicious “dark side” that would be hard to get in another medium. Fun post and interesting things to think on further. 🙂
You’re so right. Given the way I draw with traditional media I would never have produced anything like Spooky Elf Child.
Wonderful! A completely different quality but still the hand of Ziggy.
Thank you Karen 🙂 That’s the observation my husband and daughter made. So different yet so “me”.
Nice work. I’m even older school than you, but the whole digital thing does seem tempting.
Give it a go. Its just another medium to work in. And I guess different apps will produce different results. Rosie seems to have more control over mark making with her app. I’ll have to investigate this further.
Well I like that you took the leap. I am truly old school… and that means any thing that makes art is good. Leonardo Da Vinci was an early adapter. He used graphite point pencils hand made because they were new and better. Digital is only a new pencil. The screen is new paint, the print out is new distribution, all in the hands of one artist, how wonderful this new stuff is.
I enjoyed your posting, and your art. Loved the pictures.
Oh thanks so much.
You are absolutely right. The shock of the new is always met with resistance.
Love it! Very spooky indeed 🙂
Thank you! I think she’s one of the weirdest things I’ve created.
You are far from a basic artist Ziggy, these are wonderful, they look like they have morphed out of fossilised rock, quite beautiful. I have to say though, I love to get dirty and smudgy and would miss the feel of paint and paper on my fingertips…
“Morphed out of fossilised rock” what a lovely description. Yes, getting dirty and smudgy feels like you’ve worked hard for the results.
Oh this is wonderful, well done 😀 I love the mark making. David Hockney is using digital drawing extensively. Thanks for the compliments *blush*
Of course, I forgot about Hockney’s work. I am enjoying the results of working on the tablet.
It’s challenging but worth getting to grips with