Got Rusty Again! Back To Some Doodling Exercises.
A New Sketching Tool Kick Starts Drawing
This is the first of several posts about my newly acquired Apple iPad Pro tablet, and I’m glad that - because the iPad Pro is such an expensive piece of kit - that I’m beginning with a look as some creative production uses for it! (This was so nearly a post about gaming on the iPad, but I will do that one next now.) 😆
Anyway, Digital Sketching. I got into ‘urban sketching’ a good while back thanks to a Domestika course by Albert Kiefer called 'Expressive Architectural Sketching with Colored Markers'. As a graphic designer by trade my creative style has always been a little too ridged (which was why I was always only a mediocre designer) and I have always yearned to be a bit more ‘instinctive’ and dynamic with my drawings and painting, and this course was my attempt to ‘loosen up’.
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| Above: I am getting looser with my pen drawing. This is a quick doodle of a local pub - The Alma. |
Now that I am formally retired I now have all the time I need to experiment with new creative techniques, even if it means starting from scratch with some and not be worried about being ‘bad’ at some stuff. As long as I enjoy myself.
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| Above: My first exercise trying out watercolour effects to a (very) simple drawing... Very bland and unadventurous! |
That’s where I am with urban sketching. I love buildings, especially ones with some sort of weird character to them and so capturing them by sketching using a quirky technique seems - to me - to be the perfect way to combine two of my loves.
The Usefulness of Digital Sketching
Traditional - pen, brush and paper - sketching is somewhat difficult for me to do these days, but quite by chance while doing the urban sketching course I happened to give an small Apple iPad and iPencil a go, just for the hell of it. And I really enjoyed this means of creating artwork.
Drawing digitally had several advantages, the main one being that - like some other people - I have a fear of blank paper! I find it hard to start a new sketch and to make those first few marks on a page - I guess it is psychological, but I find it quite stressful to have to commit to making those first few initial marks and then having to follow through. It’s part of my general aptness to prevaricate, which I now understand come from various deep seated fears that I have.
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| Above: Early monochrome watercolour experiment. |
So, the iPad method of sketching via a drawing app and the iPencil unshackles me from my irrational fear of making mistakes by the simple advantage of allowing me unending chances to UNDO any accidental marks or drawing errors caused by my misbehaving hand. Yes, you can erase pencil lines from ordinary paper but when it comes to the more permanent ink marks you are kinda snookered-ish…
For me, iPad drawing is a distressed activity where the ‘whoopsies’ can be magically eradicated and I can redraw that line again and again until I am satisfied. That suits me, especially when undertaking a very loose and fast style like urban sketching (lots can go wrong).
[There are other advantages to using an iPad or software for drawing, but the freedom to feel like you can begin drawing and get over ‘blank paper syndrome’ is the biggest and most important one.]
Trying Something New
Another major bugbear in my flawed character is trying something new. I do not like doing things that I think I might not be good at!
Again, this is another aspect of what the kid’s these days call ‘social anxiety’, but as I was brought up in the 1960s such things did not exist. I prefer to think of it as just not liking to show myself up by producing pieces of work that others might think are rubbish! And being my own worst crisis does not help.
So when I decided to try out watercolour type effects to my sketches I knew there would be a lot of trial and error and dissatisfaction involved. But at least with digital art there is not a floor covered in crumpled up pieced ,of failed attempts - so I am doing my bit for the environment!
My first few attempt - which you can see through this post - were a continuing struggle to be more and more daring and experimental in my application of the watercolour style. One of the earliest constraints being the notion that I ‘have to stay inside the lines’ with my colouring. That’s the graphic designer in me - everything must be neat and tidy.
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| Above: My latest attempt. Starting to experiment a little more with instinctive applications of amorphous blogs of colour around the periphery. But still a bit tight with my painting on the central subject. |
Squiggly lines - an inherent hazard to my drawing these days - and messy blobs of colour leaking outside my drawings is starting (just) to become the new me.
I’m very slowly starting to relax, readjust myself to the quick, loose sketch and worry less about inaccuracy as much as capturing the feeling of a subject… Ive a long way to go, but practise makes perfect. Or should that be practice makes in-perfect in this case?
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