The paws grew claws today! It's a start on the finer details

Prissy Kitty looking a little more life-like today

Finally my colours and pen-handling on the Wacom are coming together. I decided to try adding some claws with a fine soft pastel, and add a whole additional layer of colour, so that I can even out the colour in the body and face. I believe I'm finished the tail now. My painting was brief - about 30 minutes today so far - and I like how the strokes of soft pastel created some appropriate highlights and shadows in the tail and front paw, plus edging to define those shapes.

Disregard the red background for now; I have a photo of a background I plan to work on and it has a cherry wood type of pattern.

I also spent a little time browsing tutorials online, to see if any more sophisticated technique could be applied. I found a useful tutorial that shows the basics of painting light and shadow on a still life, ironically done with Photoshop! It's title is Painting Light and Shadow, by Mattias Snygg.

Think I can finish this digital painting?

Just remember, it's my first one in a long time, and first one using a Wacom tablet.

My very first ones earned ribbons at my local country fair. The judges didn't know what a digital painting was, and no one had really heard of Corel Draw yet. That was my start with digital graphics, in 1993 to 1994, the first few years after I finished high school.

The kitty drawing (Prissy Kitty, I've decided to call her, to match her mean glance at the viewer who is interrupting her cleaning routine) has a face shaping up.

The eyes were detailed today

I'm crazy addicted to this digital painting, and at the same time need to read through the Corel Painter Getting Started Guide. I can't find keyboard shortcuts fast enough when I need them!

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.

Prissy Kitty coming along, even though I was busy doing a few freelance gigs today

Fiverr.com is keeping me really busy with app reviews. I love that computer geeky stuff, too, but I felt a little weird the past few days to not have much time to work on drawings.

So tonight at 11:00pm I blocked out a little time and no pressure to make a little progress on my sleek cat drawing idea that I started recently.

Cat looking a little more colourful after 20 min

I feel good that I made some progress. I still need to define in my mind how elongated I want her to be, and what kind of muscle tone I want to portray. I'm definitely leaning towards the clay sculpture look that I love so much.

Thoughts about transitioning from traditional to tablet drawing

While working with Corel Painter for this drawing this evening, I discovered a pastel drawing tool that feels very much like traditional Pan Pastel. It was Real Soft Pastel brush. I managed to get a real soft imprint as though I was using a sponge with Pan Pastels, especially when holding the pen in an overhand grip.

This pen grip doesn't always work with the graphics tablet, and works a lot better if you tilt the tablet so that the pen is making adequate contact at an angle. It effectively makes you notice how your whole arm is moving, rather than just your wrist. I prefer to not rely on my wrist, as I'm looking for soft, sweeping movements of course for my kitties.

I don't see any discussion online so far in my travels about how to transition from traditional drawing methods to a drawing tablet. I don't really want to give up my spontaneous and freely-moving arm gestures; a lot of comments online about Wacom tablets indicate the users are adopting a handwriting grip when using the pen.

I'd love to hear opinions on how people hold their drawing tools, whether pen, pencil, brush, or digital tools. Even my drawing books don't address this much, except for the one I'm currently reading. It's called Drawing Basics and Video Game Art by Solarski and it goes into some good detail about how to hold a pencil in various ways for drawing.

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.