I’ve been taking my iPad to life drawing now for about 2 years without fail. Sure, I bring along my sketchbook just in case I can’t use my iPad for some reason but the results are more fully developed and experimental than things I would achieve with just my sketchbook! I enjoy having my full painting studio at my fingertips rather than just charcoal or China marker, or graphite or whatever. I usually focus each 3 hour session on just a few tools, like charcoal or marker and watercolor effects rather than jumping around with too many different media. Just like with real media, that’s the way to learn mastery over different media like smudging and blending with charcoals or non-smudging mark-making with markers and pastels, just like with real media.

These one minute poses are drawn with gel pen effect, Adobe Photoshop Sketch app on iPad with apple pencil.

Below, moving into the 5 minute pose with watercolor on layer behind the marker layer above. Working in layers is what it’s all about!

Ten minute pose below, gel pen white and black fine lines above the marker strokes and watercolor on layer behind them all.

Below is the final 30 minute pose with lots of layers.

Adobe Photoshop Sketch digital drawing and painting app is very versatile and is available FREE for all devices. Draw with just your finger or use a stylus of some kind for finer control.

Smooshy marks with markers or soft pastels above and below.

Working with charcoal effects below for more depth. Each media you select reacts just as its true real world counterpart would act; markers are translucent, pastels have scratchy edges and are opaque, watercolors flow with transparency.

Lots of watercolor effects in this pose below.

In this 30 minute pose, I made use of a patterned brush I created myself in Adobe Photoshop Sketch so the mark making is unique to my drawings. It’s a brush I created by photographing a wooden trivet. Creating your own brushes, a very interesting option!!!

Published 2019/04/10