Sylvia‘s Art Journey

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 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 inter...

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.

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.

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.

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 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.