Featured

One of my Procreate drawings is being featured on Liz Kohler Brown‘s Instagram feed @ipadartistsanddesigners. I had decided to post it on IG after it had got a good amount of likes in her Facebook group. The featured version got at least more likes than I have ever got on my IG feed. So I guess my work can‘t be all that uninteresting. It probably won’t bring me tons of followers, but certainly a bit of encouragement. And who knows, one or the other person may visit my feed because of it.

Social Media

Social media frustrates me. It has almost since I joined any of them. On the one hand, it can be a great place to get together with like-minded people. On the other hand, it is very impersonal and you mostly drown in the masses. You put yourself out there and hope that what you have to offer meets somebody‘s interest. Often it doesn’t. And frankly, what many people post doesn‘t interest me either.

I don’t expect tons of likes when I post something in a facebook group or on instagram, but getting just a few likes makes me wonder if it’s all worth it. Why bother if hardly anyone cares? And in the end, posting my drawings just to see if people like them is strange. I do what I do the best way I can. I don’t need others‘ approval. If I post something it should be of worth to someone.

I‘ve been on instagram for more than a year now and found it difficult to get attention. I don’t know if people don’t like my stuff or simply don’t see it. Actually I registered to more easily follow interesting people. Then I thought it would be nice to post myself in order to not have an empty profile. And it was nice to get a bit of attention at first. But is it enough to put my humble work out there? I don’t know. I guess, to get a decent amount of attention on instagram you need to put a lot of work into it. The question is if this would be worthwhile for a non-professional. Right now I don’t think so.

Maybe it’s time to take a break from posting on social media altogether for the time being.

Procreate

I have tried out Procreate for a little while now, have learned how to use layers, alpha lock, clipping masks and such. It’s certainly great what you can do digitally, the way you can play around easily. I have made some nice sketches, a pastel painting and an Art Nouveau piece. There are lots of courses on Skillshare, some great ones are by Liz Kohler Brown. Thanks to her courses I have not only done some beautiful illustrations, I have also got tons of different brushes for free — and some fonts.

Now I need to figure out how creating with Procreate can compliment my sketchbooking, the analogue kind. Right now Procreate is fascinating, but I don’t yet know where it will lead me, where it should lead me. I don’t want to forget my sketchbook over Procreate.

Drawing digitally

I love to draw on paper with pen and pencil. And I love my sketchbooks. But I‘ve seen people draw on their iPads and seen how convenient it is. You can experiment, undo and change things as you like. And you don‘t have to waste material to do it.

Now that I happen to own an iPad that is compatible with the Apple Pencil I finally decided to try it out myself. I bought myself an Apple Pencil and the app Procreate. This app seems to be amazing and there even is a free handbook. And it isn‘t expensive at all.

I‘ve started to learn how to use it and am already experimenting with it. For now I’m planning to use it to test ideas, play around and see if this can promote my creativity. It’s certainly freeing to be able to play without having to think about wasting paper. I don’t think drawing digitally will replace drawing on paper for me, but it may support it.

My style

I have a style. I didn‘t chose it. It just happened. It‘s the result of how I like to work and what I like to work with. First, I sketch out my drawing in pencil. Then I go over the lines with ink. Finally, I colour it with coloured pencils, whereas I don‘t spend many hours on a drawing. My sketchbook has many more pages to be filled.

I don‘t know if my style is good in any objective way, but it‘s my style and I like it. It would be great if other people really liked it, but in the end it is what it is. And I do my drawings for myself in the first place.

Anyway, if I don‘t overdo them, I think the style of my drawings is somewhere between realistic and illustrative. This is how I like them best and I would love to deliberately persue this more.

Loose

I want to try and find my kind of loose. Neat lines are ... neat, but looser, sketchy lines are interesting, too. Maybe more interesting than neat ones. I don't like it too loose, too wild, though. So I am going to explore the way to the right kind of looseness for me. Today I've bought a sketch pad and a clunky black coloured pencil, because I don't want to put my experiments into my regular sketchbooks. While drawing loosely I want to concentrate on line and shape, so the lines are allowed to be thick and bold. And, of course, no pre-drawing, either.

This is certainly a project I'll follow alongside my regular sketchbook drawing. I'll see how far it goes.

Sketchbook Revival 2

Sketchbook Revival is back. It started today and I'm in. One of today's sessions was held by Carla Sonheim. We were provided a photo of, well, sidewalk cracks and shown how to see and draw funny creatures inspired by them. This is so not what I normally do, but I tried it and came up with some funny creature. Part of it is directly inspired by the photo, part of it is improvised. It looks a bit like a beetle and with those legs it certainly can only hop around. Still, I'm fairly positive it is happy to have a home in my sketchbook.

Looking forward to an interesting workshop.

Strange Flowers

In the Virtual Sketchwalk group we did Tasmania last month, which, of course, is part of Australia. As Australia has some unique animals, I thought it must also have some unique plants. So today I did some research on Wikipedia and found one that I found interesting. It's called Kangaroo Paw and a drawing of it is now in my sketchbook.

I think this would be an interesting project. Look for unusual flowers and other plants and draw them.  Drawing flowers is always nice and there must be so many out there all over the world you don't know and that look special. That doesn't mean I won't do anything else for the time being, but whenever there is nothing else I want to draw, I can look for an exotic plant an draw that.

March Madness

March Madness is a creative challenge Jessica Wesolek is doing in her Facebook group. I have never done such monthly - or even longer - challenges, but this time I wanted to try it out. She said, it's a challenge like no other, so it made me curious.

Every day we get a challenge to do and there are three levels of difficulty to chose from, so you can do it in a few minutes if you need. It's more than just a prompt, more than just a word you are given. For today we had to think of something unusual hanging on a clothes line and draw the idea. This is what I came up with:

Yes, this sloth enjoys hanging there in the fresh air surrounded by fresh clothes. This was really a fun idea, so I am looking forward to more.

Drawing - Art or Science?

I'm just watching a comprehensive Skillshare class called "The Art and Science of Drawing", which is taught by a professional, academically trained artist. It is certainly great that there is such a professional, comprehensive class on Skillshare. I'm watching it to revise the basics of drawing, to get a reminder of the theory behind the practice.

So far, so good. Though, what this class also reminds me of is why so many people shy away from learning to draw. It looks complicated and like needing lots of effort to make sense. So many dos and don'ts. Of course, it's about realistic drawing. The strange thing is that I've watched a lot of people not adhering to all these rules, like how to hold your pencil and how to place your paper, and still doing great work.

Above all, drawing shouldn't only be for those who are prepared to draw 'academically correct'. It should be for everyone and it should be fun. My own drawings may not be good enough to be able to win prizes at art shows. So what. I think they are pretty good and I had fun creating them. I did this quick drawing of a tulip I had bought yesterday. It's certainly not perfect, but it looks like a tulip and I'm sure it doesn't look like it was done by a four-year-old. Yes, I'm sure Van Gogh's drawing of my tulip would have been better. But this doesn't make my drawing unworthy.

When I began I found it very helpful to know something about the science of drawing, but what is really important is the art of it. The being creative, the letting something come into being on the paper in front of you.