Personal
Learning to Draw
I’ve always loved sketching, though I’ve never been good at it. I love the paper, the smooth unspoiled expanse of it. But I hate defiling it with my half assed attempts to create stuff, so I never practiced. I’ve purchased many a sketchbook and I am a fiend in a stationery store. My collection of coloured pens purchased in Japan and rarely used is… inspiring and embarrassing in equal amounts.
So I really loved sketching on a touchscreen with a proper stylus. My first was the original Samsung Note 10.1 tablet, and since then I’ve had the Note 4 and Note 9 phones, and recently I picked up a Galaxy S7 tab. Sketching with a stylus is magical, and after trying it in the shops, I was hooked. When I read it came with six months of Clip Studio Paint, an app which every artist knows about, I was almost ready to buy. And then it dropped in price by $350… Well that was the sign I was waiting for.
So I’ve been drawing. The three things I drew were vegetables, for some reason. And then a turtle and a pig.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Screenshot_20201130-123722_Clip-Studio-150x150.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Screenshot_20201130-143423_Clip-Studio-150x150.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/pumpkin.png-150x150.png)
And then I started tracing stuff. I loaded up photos I’d taken and started learning how to apply the tools to the bodies. I’d done things like this before, but using vectors in Inkscape.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Dani-166x300.png)
But it was incredibly tedious work. Without a pressure-sensitive pen these variable width lines had to be made with two lines, drawn by hand. If I wanted it thicker I had to move one line farther from the other, and if it was a badly curved jagged sort of line, well… that was my fault.
Drawing on the tablet was revelatory. I could draw with 4,000 levels of pressure, and that meant I could vary the line widths as I went. Later I discovered I could draw with vector lines this way, and adjust the widths later. But, at the start, each line was drawn and saved as it was. If I didn’t like it, I would have to re-draw it. As luck would have it, the first body I traced with the new pen was the same as the one drawn in Inkscape:
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Dani-1-300x203.png)
From the start I intended to aim for a more abstracted sort of style. I wanted to capture the flow and grace and strength of my models, more than the specific, accurate details of their bodies. So I didn’t draw every finger and toe. I avoided faces because they’re hard to simplify (and I suck at them regardless) and clothes were filled with scribbled colour rather than carefully delineated spaces. And there wasn’t much in the way of shadow or depth.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Illustration15-226x300.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Illustration16-230x300.png)
I was really happy, these early attempts seemed to have a lot of promise, but they were very rough still. I didn’t have any speed, I was doing one or two drawings a day, and I was using the wrong tools for the job. It took me literally months to figure out that there was a blur tool and I didn’t have to use the poorly suited smudge tool.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Sam-picsay-150x150.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/joanna_2-picsay-150x150.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/abbie-picsay-150x150.png)
When I was finished with this one, I really felt like I was on the right path. This was… Well, I thought it was fantastic! It worked for me. It was everything I wanted to achieve. The last element was the shadow, and that solidified it from a bunch of nice lines to a real drawing, and I was fully energized to continue.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/giuliab-704x551.png)
Progress was being made. Control over line thicknesses was improving, but I was still experimenting with styles. Smooth, jagged, filled, shadowed… I didn’t have a handle on it yet. But I started having some successes. Things started to click, or at least the photos I chose matched the style I was working with. These next few were really encouraging.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/katsia2-200x300.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Aurelie-2_2-200x300.png)
Still, there was little consistency. Some images just didn’t work with the style I was homing in on, so I kept working laterally, trying new things and, still, making progress. Sometimes it wasn’t a lot of progress, but I never felt like I had plateaued. Always there was improvement, and for this reason I persevered.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Joana3_2-150x150.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/jodi-150x150.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/nomes2-150x150.png)
Around this time I discovered the vector line capabilities of Clip Studio Paint, and suddenly I didn’t need to be so precise with my pen pressure. This was a relief because I was working my way into considerable shoulder and back pain trying to be so consistent with lines.
I was still experimenting. I did two versions of this image before settling on the simpler design with three thick stripes.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/asher3-1-150x150.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/asher3-1-1-150x150.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Asher-3b-150x150.png)
This image was one where I felt the face had to be drawn. And, sadly, so did the tinsel she was adorned with. What an ordeal they both were to draw. But I feel like I captured a little of her strength and what really strikes me as a regal bearing.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/kacey-1-150x150.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/kacey-150x150.png)
Different photos, styles, ideas. Always looking for something that felt right, but still finding that I was creating new methods and styles with every image.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Megan-150x150.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/butterfly-150x150.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/kacey2-150x150.png)
Sometimes I’d do one image, and make changes to it later that made it work better. Like this rope image – it was nice, but became great when I left the skin tones from the original photo in it.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Kimib-300x271.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Kimi-1b-300x271.png)
When I was a teen, I had a Patrick Nagel calendar and I loved every single page of it. So, this was my attempt at a Nagel sort of style.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Sharnib-704x469.png)
In hindsight, I think that calendar and that style had a very profound influence on the abstract, lines-without-fill style I was always aiming for.
This next image is as close to perfect as I can imagine. I can’t believe I drew it, really. It surprises me every time I scroll past it in the gallery.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/ruthFb-704x1056.png)
And I somehow managed to keep churning out images that I liked. It helps, I have no doubt, that my photo archives contain a lot of really exceptional bodies to draw from (and trace over).
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Glenda-thickerb-200x300.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/anastasiaNBb-242x300.png)
For a brief while I started painting with solid blobs of colour, virtual brushstrokes that had no lines to contain them. It was very… informative, I suppose. I only did three, and I consider the first and last to be successes, but the middle one… Not sure I did the subject justice.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/paint-1-150x150.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/kaceypaintb-150x150.png)
I drew a guy.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/crispyb-200x300.png)
These next two images have amazing hair, but while hair is time consuming and amazing when finished, it’s super difficult to create a body that matches it.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Sam-3b-300x283.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/sam5b-300x300.png)
And that brings us to today. These last two images please me greatly. I love the tone and detail and the crazed over-enthusiastic use of cherry blossoms.
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/sophie-1-240x300.png)
![](https://nfgworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/joana2f2b-200x300.png)
So yeah. I’m a drawer now, I draws stuff. Tracing, really. I have no illusions about my competency. But I’m having fun and I like what I do.
^_^
--NFG
[ Feb 4 2021 ]
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