iPad Pro Journey Day 2

It’s day 2 of my iPad journey. Initially, I messed around with the different styles of brushes that come with the Procreate app.  At some point I want to develop good hand lettering skills, if possible, so I dabbled with some of the calligraphy pens. I’m definitely going to need lots of practice.  After that, I decided to follow another YouTube tutorial. This one by Art with Flo caught my eye as this style of art is very popular right now. I grew up loving cartoons and comic books so if I can get the hang of this style I will use it often.  

I chose to use a picture of my stunningly beautiful sister as the base/reference for this project.  Unlike me, she is a cosmetic genius. I look forward to her Instagram posts, to see what glamorous look she’s created for the day.  If you are interested, head over to Instagram and follow her for makeup suggestions. You can do so by clicking here. Anyways…..back to this drawing. At the beginning of the YouTube video, she instructs you on how to choose a well-lit image with clear, crisp quality especially of the eyes.  I felt that this picture would work well. The only downside to my image selection was the flyaway wisps of hair, but for now, I’m willing to overlook that and learn.  

I agree with the creator of the video when she says that you can complete this without being able to draw.  This was really mostly tracing, which I’m not sure about you, but I find it very relaxing. I felt the video had a decent pace.  I had to pause it a few times to complete a task to my liking and then would start it back up for further instruction. Since I’m so new to this, I find that the areas where I’m having to replay and pay closer attention are when a new brush is selected and detailed instruction is not given on exactly what category that brush is under.  Or sometimes a new layer will be added and placed somewhere and it’s done just a little too quickly for me to see if there are multiple layers. But with the magic of technology, it’s easy to back up and replay what I’ve missed. That makes the learning experience stress free.

Overall, I feel I was able to follow the instructions well.  My sisters’ hair is very dark so I didn’t mess with very many variances in color streaks in the hair to give it that crazy comic pop.  I may go back later and experiment further. The example the video provided added white streaks in the hair. Initially, I followed that instruction but I didn’t care for that look so I duplicated that page and removed those streaks to see which I liked better.  I think I prefer the one without the white. My sisters’ shirt has detail in it that I will likely go back and work on as well. This was not something that was instructed in the video; however, I would like to test my skills at airbrushing the shirt to give more of a cartoon effect.  I enjoyed this tutorial and look forward to following her YouTube page.  You already saw my reference picture above, now below you’ll find the two finished products. What do you think? Feel free to drop a comment below. As always, thank you very much for stopping by the website. If you enjoyed this post please click the heart below to show some love. Stay safe and healthy.

iPad Pro Journey Day 1

Over the last 6 months, I have worked very hard and have been very blessed with sales. That work has allowed me to achieve yet another goal for my small business….purchasing an iPad Pro.  My reasoning behind setting this goal was, with an iPad Pro and some additional software; I will begin the journey of learning how to design my own graphic images.  I already make simple designs using silhouette software, but I’m always looking to step up my game and excel in any way I possibly can. In addition, I used to LOVE to draw. I was actually quite good at it.   However like with many things in life, I got older and busier and didn’t set time aside for drawing. Getting back to drawing will allow me to love my small business even more by creating pieces of unique digital art that can be displayed in many ways.  I’m hoping that as I move along in this learning journey, I can share my experiences with you. Perhaps you are a beginner as well. Perhaps you are considering the same type of purchase for similar reasons, or maybe you just need some entertainment. At any rate, I’ll try my best to share my journey with you.

I was in luck that the new 2020 iPad Pro was just released and was on sale.  I purchased from Amazon and approximately 4 days later, this 12.9-inch beauty arrived at my doorstep.  I also purchased the Apple Pencil from Amazon. It shipped and delivered in 2 days. Praise Amazon Prime! Not going to lie, unboxing the iPad made me feel like royalty.  Nerdy vibes were high that day. The crisp white packaging, simplistic yet modern, stole my heart.  

I am already an Apple user, which made setup incredibly easy.  There were just a few simple steps to follow, after which the iPad was able to connect to my iPhone and that was basically all she wrote.  There were a few steps that I choose to skip over like setting up Apple Pay, etc. I don’t feel that I will need those, and if I do, they can be updated at a later time.  Once everything was up and running, my next step was to install an app called Procreate. Why Procreate? After much research, I feel that Procreate is a very popular tool that several designers use.  It appears to be user friendly and there is plenty of tutorials available online. The best part is the price. It’s just $9.99. From what I understand if there are any updates that are made after your purchase, that update is included in the $9.99 fee you have already paid.  I priced other software companies and this was a great deal less expensive.

My first project was a guided YouTube tutorial from Art with Flo.  I chose this video because she starts off by saying, “Anyone can draw this”.  I took that challenge and was pleased with the end result. I did have to stop the video and replay in different sections, as I felt she went too fast for me as a first time user.  The only spot that I hit a snag was when I needed to download the two free brushes from her website (thank you for that btw) and get them installed onto the iPad. I ended up installing them on my laptop and moving them over to dropbox.  I then opened the Dropbox app on the iPad and easily installed the brush by just clicking on the file I wanted. I should have timed myself on this first drawing, but unfortunately, I did not think of that. For the very first project, I would say it went well.  I have put my finished product below for you to see. I plan on trying more of her tutorials to continue to learn the app. I have also posted links below for the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. As always thank you for visiting the website and reading the blog. Feel free to leave a comment below and if you enjoyed this post please show some love by clicking the heart below.