Saturday, November 21, 2009

The first digital: Northern Light

The very first time I start to paint digital was in October this year, when I needed a picture of the first northern light I saw, for my other blog. All I had were:

1) a quick pencil sketch taken six years ago:


2) the Photoshop program and a Wacom set (pen and tablet), that my boyfriend has at home (he is art director in a own computer game company, so he has a lot of these stuff).

I never hold a Wacom pen in hand previously and was quite unfamiliar with Photoshop as well. As a beginner, I found that there were many issues with this new technique:
- with the Wacom pen you experience a lack of direct feeling with the material you're working with: one cannot feel the texture of paper, or the pressure of pencil/pen/brush. Even if I feel a bit confident by drawing with pencil, I must say that I was completely handicapped with the digital one;
- what you're drawing doesn't appear directly under your hand, but in the screen: you need a new way to coordinate eyes and hand;
- it takes a while learning how to manage different layers in Photoshop.

On the other hand, the possibilities offered by the digital techniques are much larger compared with the traditional ones, so I thought it was worth trying. That's why this blog is called A Wacom Journey.

Here comes the final picture. It is a very simple work, nevertheless I can get the same feeling I had watching the Northern light six years ago. The first step was to correct all writing and other flaws from the original photo, then create and paint distinct layers for sky, landscape and northern light on the background base.


2 comments:

orma said...

E' venuto decisamente bene questo primo esperimento!
Complimenti!

Morgaine le Fée said...

Grazie Orma! anche per essere passata a trovarmi :)
Non é una tecnica semplice, spero di non metterci troppo a imparare. Peró si possono fare di quelle cose cosí belle che ne vale la pena, piccoletto permettendo.