Stepping out of my comfort zone

So here’s the thing.  I love the convenience and speed of drawing on the iPad and of course the undo button, but after being inspired by Bologna and the advance of AI I decided to take the plunge and create an entire illustration in a watercolour.  (Well that’s not strictly true, I tried with colour pencils first but I wasn’t happy with the result.). So how did I do it?  Let me talk you through the process.

First of all I sketched out my rough illustration on the iPad. But then I was faced with the problem I’ve always had. I’ve used tracing paper, projectors, all manner of things to transfer my sketch from the iPad to a piece of watercolour paper. But then I heard a tip from Lilla Rogers at Make Art that Sells. She said that the way she did it was to print your rough directly onto the watercolour paper.  As long as your printer can handle it( please check first - I did) you will be fine.  Luckily my printer was able to cope with the Fabriano paper I was intending to use.  I turned the opacity down on the sketch on my iPad until I could barely see it and then printed it out.

To have the sketch on the paper made me feel that the task ahead was much more achievable and gave me the confidence to go ahead and paint.  I knew the colour palette I wanted to use (I’m a huge fan of Payne’s grey and yellow ochre) so I was all set.

All the time I was painting I was hoping I wouldn’t make any wrong choices.  After all, as I have said before, there is no undo button, just water and a paper towel.  I was lucky enough to have the time to work on it solidly over a couple of days until it was as finished. It was lovely to paint again, experimenting with real media rather than digital

Once it was completed I had one more hurdle to jump. How do I convert my artwork into a digital file for submission?  My scanner is was too small and I did consider taking it my local photographers shop to have it scanned instead.  But thankfully, thanks to some British sunshine, I was able to capture just the right light in my conservatory. Once that was done I imported the image into procreate where I did some final tweaks using wrench tool, neatened up some of my edges until I was happy with the result. I am definitely going to do more illustrations this way if the timescale allows It reminded me of why I took up art in the first place. I love being creative and the mindfulness of painting is so therapeutic.

If you have got this far thank you so much for reading.  I hope what I have shared will be useful for you. Particularly if you’re a tech- phobe like me.

Happy holidays and happy painting

Josie