Last week I sketched and inked a drawing of the Tower of London, scanned it into the computer and then painted it using Corel Painter Essentials and Adobe Photoshop.

This is the first time I’ve used Painter.  The program came as bundled software with the wacom graphic tablet I got long ago and I finally slipped the disk into the computer and installed it.

Painter provides brushes that make it possible to quickly build texture into a painting, which otherwise takes me more effort to create in Photoshop.  Painter also has a really nice color wheel that I find very intuitive and easy to use (I’m using version 3, the color wheel may have changed in version 4, it is said to have been improved).

After applying what might be called an ‘underpainting’ in Painter, I opened the file in Photoshop and continued painting, smoothing things, adding more emphasis to different colours and placing the final touches on it.  I use a really great set of brushes in Photoshop, that I bought from Portland Studios, designed by Justin Gerard.

I love painting digitally.  I don’t find that it takes less time or effort than painting with physical paints, but I love bright luminescent colors, and painting on the computer is very like painting with light.

When I was a kid, about 7 years old, I was often invited to go to a neighbor’s house to play.  My friends had a light box with a plastic sheet/screen on it that had tiny holes through it sized to hold colored plastic pegs.  The kit came with a variety of drawings etched in white on black paper.

The idea was to place the paper on the screen, push the colored pegs through the paper and the light behind, inside the box, made the peg light up.  Punching those colored pegs through that black paper and seeing them light up brilliantly in the otherwise dark room was something I still remember vividly.  The thrill of the finished ‘work of art’ gleaming in super bright colors!  I guess some things about a person just don’t change with time:  painting on the computer nowadays gives me similar delight.

Painting digitally is also a great way to investigate compositions and colors for a painting. I’ve used the computer to create a rough reference for a couple of the egg tempera paintings and also for some watercolor paintings.  It’s an excellent way to experiment and learn. From now on I plan to make a digital painting rough part of my routine work flow to use as a reference in painting an egg tempera or watercolor piece.

Here’s one of the sketches, from the movie Chain Reaction, I drew and inked using a Pentel brush pen.

'At Party' Brush Pen Ink Sketch

I’m trying my hand at pen and ink sketches. I have tended to avoid drawing people, so that’s mainly what I’m concentrating on just now. It’s turning out to be a great deal of fun, not to mention challenging.

I choose scenes from dvds for movies we’ve watched recently, so that I don’t spoil a movie for the next viewing of one that we haven’t seen in a while.  (I love movies). 

Sketching from dvds also provides a perfect opportunity to study the composition and layout of scenes and shots. How does the camera focus on the person in the scene? What is shown in addition? Where are the people placed and where are they relative to one another? There are so many tips to learn from directly just by doing this, which is great for honing skills to create works of art that excel in visual storytelling.

Here’s a closer look at the top sketches… (As usual, you can click on the images for larger view.)

In the past, I have often thought I should sketch, and on a couple of occasions I made feeble starts at it and gave up. This time I’m going all out – and the experience is so much fun that I can surely recommend doing it.  Even my previous short forays into sketching just for the sake of sketching have contributed to helping me get going this time. Every little bit helps….

If you were hesitating about whether ‘to sketch or not to sketch’, give it a try!

Just let go, don’t worry about bumbling it (you can always hide those – I do) and go for it. I’d love to hear from you if you sketch, or if you have any thoughts or suggestions on sketching.