Merging Digital and Traditional Mediums in Sketching

Procreate on iPad Pro 12.9"

There are moments when you wish your pen or brush does not run out of ink or skip a stroke when you are in that zone of no return. When that really happens, everything screeches to a screaming halt, and you are out of the zone. Within a split second you seem to loose the flow or momentum and you wish such things don't happen at all. Nothing is perfect you console yourself. But sketching with the iPad is different. The saving grace is, battery life is good. Before it is drained out of its juice, you would already be pretty tired.

iPad Pro and Brushpen

Technology has married both traditional and digital domains. Take for example the above drawing. It was done on location in the train on a sketchbook with a brush pen. I took a pics with my iPad and brought it up in Procreate where I filled in the colours. Isn't it convenient? The first sketch on the top was done in iPad but screen tones were added later with Photoshop.

Everything is out there at your finger tips. Digital tools and materials are made available readily but it takes boldness to embrace them and harness their powers. There is no perfect medium. I wish I have more time and capacity to experiment with all.

Brush pen and Procreate

Depend on how you use it, Procreate allows digital painting to have a traditional edge to it, like the lady drawn on the right. Those strokes were not made by coloured pencils but pencil brush tools in Procreate. It sounds like cheating. But once in a while or most of the time I am sketching and painting with traditional mediums. I still love the feel of paper under my skin, the rough edges, the tooth and flipping the pages. No digital medium could replace that experience, not even the sound of pen or brush scratching the surface of the paper, and that is music to my ears.