'Cat on path' drawing took a lot of time and involved a lot of ink

I completely neglected to blog as I was creating this one, over a period of about 3 days. So here it is. It's one that already I am arranging to frame and hang on my wall. It seems worthy of trying to sell on ebay some day, or my local shopping site usedvictoria.com.

Here's a quick look at the finished piece:

Forest kitty ink drawing by Heidi Bada

A few points to remember about my artwork

1. All images anywhere on my blog, stores, and other online or print locations are copyright protected. I'm shocked that people these days think they can use peoples' drawings and photos in their ads. It doesn't matter that a (c) copyright symbol isn't present. Please spread the word that you need consent to use other peoples' images in your ads, signs, flyers, websites, and so on. I'll stop the lecture there.
2. I'm looking for feedback and of course let me know if you'd like to buy a print. My next step is to upload it to my FineArtAmerica and Society6 stores (Society6 seems to have cheaper shipping but I'll leave it up to you to decide). 

How this image evolved

Since the piece is completed, I'll give you the whole story with my recollections.

First, I thought I wanted a sweet little forest scene with munchies for the cat. I sketched on scrap paper to get the figure close to real life proportions, and wanted to keep that cute little face that appeared even though it seems like it's straining to see something off to the side.

Basic cat on a path surrounded by weeds

I thought a cat on a plain green background would be boring, and I saw an opportunity to make a foreground of encroaching branches. I was also trying out a potential maximum for the reach of the grass, represented by those yellow bushes in the top region.

Grass and leaves added

I'm pretty sure I didn't like what I saw. I wanted to see what the sky would actually look like, not knowing how dark my new blue ink would dry. Yikes! It's pretty opaque and medium-dark.

Sky and rocky foreground started

Going on my idea of leaves, which at this point weren't standing out very noticeably, I also discovered the bottom region needed a foreground too, as an environmental cue that the pathway is an opening for your eye into the picture and perhaps adventures of this kitty cat.

Now a step back to see some balance in the image

I seem to have gotten quite involved at this point, and didn't snap any more cell phone photos. I really wanted a bright cat, with an inviting environment to explore. Given the sorta dark sky, I started to sense an evening time for this image. 

I smoothed out the grass and the rockery to match the even tone in the sky. The cat's colourful coat required several...coats...of ink to cover the area and allow some highlight variations while I also had yellow on my ink palette for doing the green grass and leaves. While the leaves ended up brighter than the grass, they actually stand out as an eye-catcher for the cat's yellow eyes I think.

The land unexpectedly started to look like it was rolling off into a valley at left. It reminded me very much of rolling hills along the roadside in the interior region of B.C. where I've travelled.

I thought I'd leave the ink work done here, with a viewer wondering what the cat is thinking, what it's looking at, and where it might be located. I think the bright leaves indicate the location might be close to streetlights or houselights, and it seems cozy to me.

Finished now

How to finish this off? Another cat pastel nearing completion

This one is made using pan pastels. I like the current unpainted state of the foreground objects.

Frisky Tail nearly completed

The whole point of this picture was to convey a typical reward that a cat looks forward to, being pat on the head.

But as I finished some of the background details, I noticed a bit of a social theme emerging. There's a mouse right in front of the cat. The sun is shining. The trees are lively and full of energy.

The cat unfortunately, like many people, is ignoring the world at his footsteps in favor of a quick fix. It's easy to look cute and get a pat on the head! It takes energy to enjoy active and cognitive pursuits.

In any case, the foreground objects will probably be completed with a bright color scheme to draw attention to them.

Let me know if you like it! The finished work will show up at my Society6 and FineArtAmerica shops, and my portfolio too.

Cheers,

Heidi

Progress on kitty painting...now it has a background in progress

Here's my Prissy Kitty digital painting so far, with a background started today. I'm following the basic steps in a tutorial on building up a 3-dimensional cartoon-like image.

This image feels like it's on track thanks to tutorial

I had been working on this image bit by bit, while learning to use Corel Painter AND my Wacom tablet. This tutorial was perfect for developing my image properly in terms of digital painting steps. I like the image in my head so much, that I'm being quite tedious in my process.

I went too far into my shading and highlighting earlier, trying to establish some depth to the character, before I found this tutorial. Depth can be established by painting, like in real life, with tints and shades of colours. That is was I initially did here. I also tried some dodge and burn tools that other tutorials suggested, after laying down a relatively flat colour to work with. It's useful to get practice in both.

And thanks to the Corel Painter Getting Started Guide I mentioned in my last post, I'm finding tools faster and more reliably already! And with only an hour of practice so far.

This tutorial starts out with blocked-in colours (in Photoshop I believe) then lighting effects, then details. The background is dealt with fairly late in the process, which suits this image similarly to the example shown in the tutorial. We'll see how it plays out in Painter and my kitty drawing. I'm still intending to have a leering glance on her, being interrupted by an admiring passerby looking at her shiny and clean coat of fur.

Latest drawing - this one's a creepy, crawly figure

Here's a quick shot of a drawing exercise today, turned watercolour painting:

Cellphone snapshot of a drawing today

The exercise instructed me to start with a stick figure, which I took as an opportunity to draw an unfortunately weary human form. Then add mass, and colour, with light and shadow.

I didn't get so far as adding light and shadow specifically, but I did add an ominous tornado-like dark force at left, creeping up behind the poor traveller. Oddly enough, he seems to be heading into the light.

The paper was quite wet upon finishing, and I added some sprinkles of salt to try out the technique of using salt to add a textured look to watercolour washes. I sprinkled three areas - both of the red patches of background, plus the blue tornado element. I suspect the blue was nearly dry, as the salt had little, if any effect.

Note that my teen drawing was often creepy like this - some deformation but still recognizably human. This drawing takes anatomy more seriously though, to coincide with the thorough discussion of anatomy in the drawing books I've read recently.

This time, instead of starting with the feet, I started with the head; I really wanted the figure to not be completely in profile, and here he is turning away slightly so we see the back of his head and just a hint of an eye and nose. Then the basic pelvic shape, then the legs hanging off awkwardly, with dainty slow steps beneath.

I think he looks stable on his feet, but that crazy life-adjusted back curve tells a story that this person is not the same man he was years ago...although it still was just a drawing practice exercise!

Also note that his feet are able to articulate. I wonder if I drew that so prominently, at a time when I've broken some toes in my foot and can't make that shape with my own foot (yet?) !

This exercise reminds me that I love to make drawings of figures doing things. Sports is ideal for me, and I've done lots of that in past (not recently). And I also have fun using my imagination to create unlikely or unlikeable situations for the characters. Or maybe exciting and positive situations too. We'll see what happens at my next practice session, I guess!

Another cat drawing came to mind - she's busy making herself look good

I got an idea to use the idea of a cat to portray a glitzy glamorous personality, to be interpreted whatever way the viewer likes, using pastel.

The visual style I want to use is the same one that dominates my mind but I work hard to get close to it using pastel. I believe acrylic would get to the effect quicker, but I enjoy using pastel, and now my Wacom tablet more than acrylics which are more costly in terms of preparing a surface and potentially ruining brushes.

I've decided the illustrative effect that I am most enthusiastic about can be described as claymation or china doll appearance, but in paint or pastel, which looks kinda like what these artists produce:

1) Will Terry, whom I found by accident online today. My favourite image of his is a good example of that 3-D clay sculpture look I enjoy. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy, and I believe it is a great way to portray cats. I believe cats belong on a pedestal. I'm sure my cat theme in my drawings tells a lot about my personality.

2) Jaime Zollars is another artist I found in some book in the past and I made a note of the name. My favourite image looks so serene and emotional.

3) Shawna Erback, found on Fineartamerica.com. My favourite image is video-game-lifelike even though you can't see the girl's face.

4) basically the entire graphics in the movie trailer The Boxtrolls, showing on TV right now!

I started this cat image as a digital painting. I've gotten as far as a pencil sketch. She'll have a glaring stare at the viewer, to say 'leave me alone while I'm washing.' I'm pretty sure every hair will be in place, except maybe a tuft that is disturbed currently by her tongue. And she'll have a pretty bow or bell on her collar. It might just be my most challenging personal project yet!

I might also want to create a copy using pan pastels. I think the glow of white paper underneath the light dusting of pastel pigment would look seriously vibrant and engaging.

Cheers for a work in progress!

Hey...at least I got the basic form out already!

Where will I start with using my new Wacom tablet for digital drawing and painting?

I've been asking myself that since I bought my Wacom digitizing tablet a few days ago. It's not an easy answer. The product doesn't come with a manual, no surprise, but it also doesn't have anything to help a traditional artist or a Photoshop photo editing specialist adapt to this new tool.

Do I redo my drawing and painting skills using the tablet instead of pen or brush?

Do I open a blank window and press the buttons and move the pen around to see what it does?

Or do I try out the Corel Painter X3 trial app that came with the device - hoping that Corel has created a digital drawing tutorial to learn the tablet's features, and digital painting in general?
* note: several other drawing apps come with the device, but Painter is the only one I'm familiar with

Or hope and pray for help on YouTube?

Being the type of person who just likes to jump in and do something, rather than search online for an answer to a specific but obscure question, I make a short plan:

1. Open Corel Painter and follow any tutorials it offers using my Wacom tablet where possible
2. Try Wacom website (again) to seek instructional videos on using the hardware properly - during installation, videos offered gave me no instructions on what its buttons do, and I didn't feel inspired to search YouTube for other videos at that point
3. Use Painter while working through a book I just studied at library: Bold Visions, oriented towards digital painting

The results follow! 

I spent the whole afternoon getting a good feel for the device, and Painter to boot. All I knew about Painter at the start, is that it is the best app for simulating watercolour painting, and I love that idea!

I just finished doing a thorough practice using the book Bold Visions, and it works with environments, lighting, forms, shadow, and many examples of working from sketch to forms to details. This exercise gave me an opportunity to work with the copious notes I made.

In Corel Painter and Corel.com

Starting point for learning more about Corel Painter

To my delight, it offers a learning module full of instructional videos. Many cover how to work with brushes in the app, and some videos cover full image creation examples. Non-video written tutorials are also available for those artists who prefer to work with step-by-step instructions. I clicked on Digital Art.

After viewing a few videos, I was still only working with basic strokes, and still didn't know how I'm supposed to hold the stylus, or what the buttons do when actively painting. Note - the System Settings app in a Mac computer creates a Wacom category when the device is installed, and it lets you program the buttons and set up your usage preferences.

In Wacom.com

Here I found a different pathway to find tutorials. At the main wacom.com website, I hit the ? icon to get Support. Then Product Tutorials. There I chose my model (Intuos Pro) and also saw a Webinars tab that turned out to offer Painter and other painting tutorials that apply to any tablet.

Tutorials organized by Wacom product families, plus webinars

Continuing with the Intuos category, I found two tutorials that go beyond the installation process. One is for working with "radial menus" and the other is about configuring buttons and preferences. Finally I found answers to some of my curiosity about how the features work! I mean, I saw quickly that the buttons can be programmed, but without experience using buttons in conjunction with a drawing tablet...well let's just say the information didn't register as to how I might want to program my buttons and radial menu. A nice feature is that by default, the second "express button" down brings up a diagram of the buttons and stylus, and clicking on any part brings up the appropriate settings from the Settings-->Wacom Tablet module on my Mac.

*note - the tablet needs to be turned on (it isn't automatically on when using without cord) in order for Settings --> Wacom Tablet to open.

Good to know: 1) settings can be recorded for different apps, 2) the second button down on the tablet brings up a reminder of all the current settings for all the buttons

So there you go...I feel much better prepared for Painter, and I'll create some real pictures using my tablet with techniques learned in the Bold Visions digital painting book I found at the library.

Using Bold Visions techniques

The overall technique is probably the same any artist would learn in art school - rough in shapes, add tone to establish depth and three-dimensionality, and finally add details. The procedure using something like Photoshop or Painter requires several layers ideally, to get the best control of the digital canvas.

I started with no particular image in mind, just a cats theme and a textured pastel paper with a lavender tint.

I instinctively started outlining a cat with a pastel tool...then I remembered I'm not just sketching. I started over with the idea of blocking in shapes as an underpainting, still using a pastel:

I continued to work at adding colour glazes (influenced by recent studies in pastel) and edging. By now I was holding the tablet at a 30-45 degree angle with one hand, and drawing with a relaxed and loose grip (learned from drawing tutorials) with my dominant hand. Since learning to NOT draw with a handwriting pose, my drawing surface needs to be angled, including my tablet. It's proven to be effective for controlling my mark-making strokes. I'm certain that the classic handwriting pen posture was developed so we could colour inside the lines. No need for that here.

I'm having lots of fun using the tablet, as I would with tradition in-hand drawing tools. The ability to choose unlimited colours in my apps is invaluable, by the way. The colour picker is oriented around a colour wheel with tints and tones displayed in the centre, which is convenient. I wouldn't say that drawing on the computer is any quicker than traditional media. The colours and lack of dust are two positives, and when doing watercolours, I hear that Painter allows 'drying' the paper which is sometimes a pain when using real paint.

Here's some edging now on a new layer, in Gel blend mode.

More form and some edging

I haven't tried to smudge my pastels yet. It turns out Corel Painter includes a variety of Blender tools that smudge the strokes.

I've gone a bit farther ahead to do some detail in the eyes and nose, to get the shapes started in that area, so I can get onto shadows and light sources for the purposes of demonstrating the tasks I typically would do with a digital painting project. They eyes and nose layer is Default blend mode.

Closeup of eyes and nose beginnings

Next I tried to do some quick lighting and shading. I want to add highlight to the shoulder and under chin to use up some of the excessive facial region and body that I blocked out earlier.

In the process, I also added as much detail as I intended. Here is the final result:

Final cat by Heidi Bada

There you have it. A completed digital pastel drawing. Didn't cost me a penny, other than buying the drawing tablet. I started to enjoy using the device nearing the end. Using blend modes and adjusting opacity is a great digital feature in Photoshop or Painter, and opens up new kinds of images I can make. So I shall keep busy practicing my drawing and pastels, while also studying digital art and using my imagination to apply these modern tools appropriately for goals.

Results of fog exercise, adding fog to a skateboard still life photo

I found a fog-making Photoshop tutorial that looked promising and I really wanted to try it. I really wanted to add some doom and gloom to some of my photos. I found one photo that definitely needed a dramatic enhancement, shown below.

Original skateboard with grid spot flash accessory

This photo was the result of some tests using a grid spot flash attachment, which was a new accessory to me. I love the strange lighting effect it produces: flat yet vibrant.

Working through this tutorial, on the tutsplus.com website, I proceeded through several steps. First of all I added fog with a fog-oriented brush set. I didn't want to pay for the suggestion brush set on deviantart.com so I found an alternate free option by searching "fog brush Photoshop."

Using a mask, and gradients, the fog was tailored and tamed. Green and blue layers were added with gradient fills and "Soft Light" blend mode, to create that creepy alien atmosphere found in the tutorial.

What do you think of the result? Creepier or more alluring? Mysterious at least?

Skateboard still life after creepy fog added

Logs photo enhanced many ways using Photoshop, along with its symbolic meanings

Here's another photo I took that I really enjoy browsing. There's a lot going on for me in this photo. I decided to leave in the environmental clues of the viewer's position inside a bus. In this case, it's a Greyhound bus headed up the coast of B.C. towards Whistler.

Original photo of logging truck passing my Greyhound bus during a trip

I hanged onto this photo because the craggy, barren mountains are in the background are begging for attention, given the foreground full of raw logs. I truly don't recall now, but I believe this photo was probably taken near Squamish B.C. The mountains hint at rock climbing enthusiasts flocking to this area, which they do at Squamish.

I originally was going to add a bloom effect to make the logs glow against the barren backdrop. My usual techniques for that weren't producing ghostly effects, so in the meantime I applied a Camera Raw filter. Keep in mind the original was taken with a pocket camera, in JPG format. Being able to adjust several key sliders using Camera Raw is an awesome feature in Photoshop Creative Cloud edition. 

While adjusting for light and colour, the logs sprang to life using the Saturation and Vibrancy sliders. I kept the artificial effect but toned it down later with the Opacity slider. 

I next applied a Vibrance adjustment layer, to punch up the clouds, logs, and foreground bus details using a mask to exclude the mountains. Also required was a mask to apply a High Pass filter to sharpen only the mountains. Finally, I did my first careful efforts and applying a colour-popping enhancement using a Levels adjustment layer (without any adjustments applied), set to Screen blend mode, and brushed in select spots to add highlights to some of the craggy spots in the background, the brightest areas of the logs, and a few spots of the far-off background to the right. 

All of these techniques were found in the book Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual (my favourite intro to Photoshop), and randomly-found online tips and tricks whose sources are long-forgotten.

Brightened, jazzed-up version of logs photo

I figure you might like to know why I still enjoy this photo. Well, now that it appears more lively, emphasizing the logs against some untouched wilderness background, I must tell. Originally, I wanted the bloom effect to work so that I could crop out just a rectangular area of nothing but logs and mountainous background, to offer a contemplative message that some regions can't be cut down, and some barriers must be respected, as a metaphor for social interactions as well.

Since I eventually ended up leaving in the foreground, the message must now also include travel as a component. While I was travelling on a Greyhound, a part of B.C. nature was travelling right alongside me. Various trucks carrying trailers full logs probably were following me, passing me, dropping back now and then, and finally I bothered to photograph one as it passed by, leaving the Squamish area. They looked helpless to me, being carried away from their source soil, while I was carefree and heading on a vacation near where they had been cut down.

Take whatever meaning you wish out of that photo now.