“Digital Painting” - coloring with with a computer using Adobe Photoshop, is becoming a popular trend for adding color to hand drawings and big departure from using traditional color markers and colored pencils. Many digital artists use Wacom Pen Tablets or Wacom Cintiq Displays.
I haven't fully explored the incredible possibilities of digital painting and honestly feel a bit behind the learning curve. I’m convinced this is a valid visualization technique to learn and recently sat down at my computer to produce a series of digital coloring studies. Below is a series of quick coloring attempts using my Wacom Cintiq 18SX touch screen monitor and Adobe Photoshop.
Original Ink Line Sketch. I opened a perspective sketch I had drawn of a tight urban retail alley. The image had very little hatching or tonal variation and was a good “base drawing” for my digital painting experiment.
Wacom Cintiq Monitor. Using a stylus pen, I opened the image in Photoshop and created different color layers for various components of the drawing such as sky, walls, ground, windows, landscaping and people color layers. By keeping the color layers separate, I could adjust color intensities and filters without affecting the other layers.
First Digital Coloring Study. I created a “sunset sky” with a blend of blue and yellow color. The overall walls and ground plane were given a texture with the filter called Film Grain. The dark-to-light effect on the paving was created using the gradient tool. What I discovered in this first study was an overly simplified texture from the film grain filter, a lack of white highlights on building faces and an overall flat light character. There was plenty of room for improvement!
Digital Night Scene. To create an effect of an evening scene, I added a dark gray layer of color over the entire image, gave it a 50% transparency and erased areas close to the lights using a soft edge erasing tool in Photoshop. I carefully erased windows and highlights on people. I spent no more than ten minutes to create the night scene!
Tonal Variations and Linework. In this third digital study, I changed from a Photoshop film grain filter to a “sponge filter” and gave the background texture a modeled appearance. I changed the tones of several squares on the pavement to create a more interesting variation. The building wall on the left of the alley changes from dark to light in order to establish a sense of depth. I also used a fine brush tool to draw a darker hatching pattern and white highlights on the umbrellas and roof outlines.
Although the digital coloring is incomplete, I began to learn how digital painting can become a serious drawing tool for designers. As digital monitors and tablets such as the iPad become more popular, we will see a contunued surge in digital artwork and graphics. If you have experience with digital painting, I would love to hear from you and feature some of your drawings in future blog posts!
Look for other interesting articles on my blog, visit my website www.drawingshortcuts.com and read my new book Drawing Shortcuts Second Edition.
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Posted by: Timberland Shoes UK | 03/14/2012 at 09:28 PM
I haven't fully explored the incredible possibilities of digital painting and honestly feel a bit behind the learning curve.
Posted by: Melbourne Roof Restoration | 09/20/2012 at 02:16 PM