I was the biggest skeptic of digital “art.” It seemed too easy to draw over photos. Every time I saw a digital portrait on Instagram, I passed because I thought it was too perfect. Then I joined the SKTCHY app on the iPhone and I saw more digital portraits. Some looked way to perfect, but others had that look where you can tell the artist did it by observing, not copying. I was still skeptical.

Then I saw the David Hockney exhibit at the Met. I walked into a room where there was a large Digital screen and on it were David Hockney’s paintings done on the iPad using Procreate. There is a feature where you can loop the drawing process and they were playing that on the screen. You can see the entire drawing and painting process. I was enthralled. Amazed. SMITTEN. I sat down on the floor not caring who was around me and I was in Heaven. WOW.

I walked out of there with a whole new appreciation of digital art and how it can actually BE art. You can use the iPad as a sketching tool. A tool to create cartoons and animation. I have even mimicked collage on the iPad. I follow a Hong Kong artist named Rob Sketcherman and I was impressed with his digital urban sketches. (Alas, I haven’t seen many posts from Rob lately, I hope he and his family are ok with Hong Kong’s issues.) I starting to use the iPad to urban sketch and I love playing with various features to see what happens. There’s always the “Undo” button if I don’t like something. I also like that I can pull a painting or sketch into Procreate and work from the original to create something new. I did that the other day with the Unicorn post.

Below is an example of an urban sketch (on location) that I did back at the end of June. I have been wanting to get out and sketch more but I have to adapt to the new world we have now.

At least I can still get out……