Initial test drawings on the new iPad Pro (First Generation)

Digital Sketching with an iPad Pro | Apple Pencil[/caption] For the digital sketch above, I was using an iPad Pro measuring 12.9" that I bought back in Dec 2015. So it has been about 1.5 years using the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to satisfy my craving to sketch on the digital platform. The person who has inspired me to sketch digitally is Rob Sketcherman (http://www.sketcherman.com/blog/) who has started sketching with the regular iPad and a non-ApplePencil stylus. He has made on his blog, many recommendations on how to sketch digitally from which I drew my knowledge from. I think its me, but I just couldn't do what he did with his gadgets.

First off, instead of using a second or third generation iPad at that time, I was using the first, that did not work well with any of the styluses I purchased. When I tried on a iPad Mini, its configuration wasn't working well too. I had enough from trying so I gave up, honestly. When I met Rob in Singapore during the 4th USK Symposium, he told me to hold back from buying another iPad to try, instead wait for the coming iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. I couldn't believe my ears but I waited for half a year or more, and restraining my impatience for that long.   When iPad Pro and Apple Pencil were launched finally, everything was history. They worked well with Procreate, like a charm. I fell once again with sketching on the digital platform again. I have several blog posts before about how I felt with these devices but I will be posting them again here.

Students hard at work - iPad drawing

Digital Sketching with an iPad Pro | Apple Pencil

Urban Sketching with iPad Pro - Blair Road

Sketching in Starbucks

Watercolour (traditional) medium versus iPad Pro Digital Sketching



Objectively it is not difficult to compare. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages. Both mediums show some similarities and of course many more differences. Some may like one and dislike the other. Some, like me, show equal liking for both. I so think the iPad Pro with Procreate would be a great combination and good opportunity to marry both digital and traditional mediums together.

 Sometimes iPad is my preferred choice of drawing platform because it is convenient. Like I said before it only require an Apple Pencil. No fuss with filling ink, skipped lines, ink splatter and so forth. And henceforth, over time, drawing with the iPad can eventually get a little monotonous, especially when you are through with customising your own brushes, making new ones and experimenting with them to make every brush stroke looking natural, and mastering them.

To make the drawing process with the iPad Pro to feel less digital, I try to avoid using functions like, zoom-in, zoom-out, or even Undo. I even allow some marks that were caused by failed palm rejection. I would draw with one layer, even with adding colours, so that the process feels like drawing on paper, well, as much as possible.





However, no matter how you try to reverse the digital process, nothing beats the paper texture, the feel of the tooth against your pen, causing skipped lines, splatter, scratches and much more. Though these things can be created in the digital medium (some artists actually went through lotsa pain to emulate the traditional look and feel), they cannot get as spontaneous as drawing and painting on paper.

Take for example the painting above. It was done with watercolor on Saunders paper NOT. Half way through the painting, it started to rain and the rain got quite heavy. I was fortunately sat under a little awning of a restaurant so I was kept dry throughout. But the painting was outside the awning, though I tried to keep it sheltered, the paper got wetter and wetter as I painted. But I loved the result!! Something that is pretty hard to achieve in a digital medium.

In conclusion, just stick to whatever brings you joy in drawing!

Why sketch digitally?



When Apple Pencil was first launched last year in Oct 2015, I gasped at how well the new stylus worked on the iPad Pro after watching a video demonstration by a great urban sketcher friend from Hong Kong. His name is Rob but he calls himself Rob Sketcherman. I got to know him when I attended a regional sketching symposium in Penang, Malaysia. He was sketching with the iPad, and I was really impressed by how he managed to make everything worked for him smoothly. I have tried sketching digitally with the iPad and iPad Mini with many different stylus but none work like he did. He shared his secrets with everyone else and I bought and tried all his methods but nothing worked for me. During the International Symposium held in Singapore last year in the month of July, I told Rob I was going to purchase a new iPad (v3) as the last resort to sketch digitally. Immediately, he told me to wait for the new iPad, at that time, we did not know that it would be called iPad Pro, but he knew its going to be bigger. I diligently waited for a couple more months before I got myself one in December 2015, and waited another month for the Pencil to arrive. By then I have already seen many video demonstrations on Youtube, and I couldn't wait to get my hands on the gadgets.

There was one burning question in my heart. If the Apple Pencil works so well, why weren't the Apple dealers in Singapore promoting it. For many months, the Apple Pencil did not show up on the shelves in many many Apple shops. A friend has to scour the earth and call up in order to finally find one that carried it. And when I asked around, not many creatives in Singapore actually got excited about it. Eventually I found out that the preferred stylus and tablets are actually Surface Pro, Samsung and Wacom. I guess there aren't many Apple supporters here. Oh well, I really don't care what others think as long as I am happy with my gadgets.

Since then I have been sketching digitally on the iPad Pro and it has slowly taken over my fountain pens and sketchbooks as the preferred choice of sketching, but not taken over entirely. I am still sketching with my pens and watercolours on papers, but recently I wasn't able to decide which to carry with me, so I turned to the iPad naturally. Recently I have also been tweeking the brush settings on Procreate so I could somehow emulate the effects of sketching traditionally. For example, I customised a brush that draws like the brush pen and I loved it.







The flexibility of the Procreate App makes it easy to make adjustments and providing the speed and ease of sketching fast. There is no lack and the response time is awesome. All the factors of a good drawing tablet. I wouldn't want to be bog down by settings, connections, sync-ing and so forth. I need the tablet to feel like drawing on paper though that is quite impossible, due to the glassy surface and the plastic feel of the stylus. The paper presets gives me the options of choosing which paper format and size. I love sketching on the long landscape format.

 



Since it is relatively light weight (almost weigh nothing to me), and fits into my bag easily, I carry it wherever I go. Sometimes my traditional mediums weigh more. I could do so much with so little. :D



It's always fun to finally find something that works well with my work flow. I like to sketch fast and problems like ink flow and finding water (still fun) sometimes frustrate me.