Vector Drawings - How I began digitally drawing.

When I first began digital drawing in early November of 2014 I started out with the idea that I wanted to create drawings that looked like pen and ink. In my political cartooning days I had drawn cross-hatched, editorial style cartoons with nib-pen, brush and ink and it was the drawing style that I was most comfortable with. My first attempts at drawing on the iPad were weak to say the least. I didn't like the way the stylus' that were available to me felt. Mostly the nibs were large and spongey and dragged as they crossed the glass surface of the iPad. There was no sense that this felt at all like drawing. I was used to a Wacom tablet that I use exclusively in Illustrator and Photoshop for my job as a graphic artist so the missing pressure sensitivity of the cheap iPad stylus' bothered me. I pretty well gave up thinking that it wasn't going to work for me. I was trying a variety of apps as well and none of them felt natural with interfaces that just got in the way. 

 

A vector drawing done in Adobe Draw

I wasn't looking too deeply into this sort of thing so I was surprised one day while in a techie store to see for sale a blue-tooth, pressure sensitive stylus that actually had programable buttons and a tip that was comparatively small and hard. This was the Adonit Jot Touch. After the sticker shock wore off I decided to give it a try. I told myself that I could return it immediately if I didn't like it and if I did the price was worth it. Because I use illustrator at work everyday and was used to the way vector lines responded I first thought that drawing something that looked like pen and ink would work better in a vector program so I opted to begin the experiment in Adobe Draw.

 

This Portait of a girl holding her head in her hands was one of the first finished drawings that I did using the Adonit stylus in Adobe Draw. I first did some drawings on a white background but found them to be lacking in depth. I also noticed that as I added lines to the image—being a vector app—the file size and strain on the limited resources of the iPad grew exponetionally. Vector files work differently than raster files and the redraw was causing annoying lags as I got deeper into each image. Drawing on a black background allowed me to get to the same darkness using half of the strokes. Even so these files were very large (when transferred to my desktop as Illustrator files they were nearly 100 Megs).    

   

A vector drawing done in Adobe Draw

I was invigorated by the process and quite thrilled to be able to draw anywhere and anytime with out all of the palaver of having to get all of the traditional bits of brushes, pens, ink, pot of water, etc. I found myself drawing on coffee breaks at work, the bus, in pubs and while watching tv. Traditional media couldn't compete with that advantage. Since I hadn't done any drawing in years it was this tiny advantage that allowed me to keep at it. 

 

I soon came to see there was a problem with the Adonit stylus. Although I loved the feel and ease with which it worked, it had a steel, non-replaceable tip that was wearing and scratching the surface of my iPad. So I went looking and found my next stylus which was a Wacom. I was very comfortable with the feel and balance of the Wacom stylus that I used at work on the desktop and Wacom was smart enough to design the iPad version almost exactly the same. Plus it had a plastic replaceable tip. It also seemed to have slightly better pressure sensitivity and a longer lasting battery.

 

 

Vector drawing of a parrot done in Adobe Draw

I continued to do around 20 or so finished drawings using the Wacom stylus and the Draw app but the problem of lag from re-draw with these vector files was really beginning to annoy me. I went searching for a good raster drawing app. I think at this point I have pretty well downloaded and tried them all but in the end it really wasn't even a toss up. Procreate is in my opinion the single best digital drawing/painting app available for the iPad. That may change but not if the people at Procreate listen to their user base and stay ahead of the game (please add something to let me know my zoom percentage!) 

 

I had been anxiously following Apple news for some time with regards to the iPad Pro. A larger drawing surface, more memory and a faster cpu—all very welcome upgrades. It got better however; the Apple Pencil. When my new iPad Pro arrived I immediately could see it was as good as promised and what this would mean for my digital drawings. The bad news is my go-to app Procreate got a great upgrade for the Pro that unfortunately no longer was supporting the Wacom stylus. In fact the only one they would support was the Apple Pencil—which I had on back-order. Grrrr.....

 

Next: The wonderful world of colour. . .