My project for course: Portrait Sketchbooking: Explore the Human Face

I want to draw digitally for a variety of reasons. I can draw successfully with pencil and paper already. I know the course was primarily designed for pencil and paper, but it said the instructor also did digital, so I assumed there would be some mention of it. There was not, either in the content or in response to my questions. As a result I did not get that much from the course itself. I do however admire Gabriella's work and think the course was well presented.

There were many issues with the website, and technical support was terrible. I did get a good support person finally, and I see some of the problems have been fixed. However, the whole support experience left me feeling bad. I have a high opinion of Gabriella though. There could have been more and better feedback is my only complaint. But with thousands of people taking the course, that probably is not going to happen.

The net result is that I had to figure it out myself. The problem is mostly with shading. Digital brushes do not work like real pencils. The biggest problem is that opacity builds up, so going over the strokes leads to a blotchy appearance. It is ok with most programs as long as you do not lift the pen, but sooner or later you have to lift the pen. After that is is very hard to make additions or corrections. I ended up over time making maybe a dozen custom brushes that would give a decent look and also minimize this problem and fiddled extensively with the parameters of each. In the end I ended up with two more or less useful ones, one light and one dark, done through texture, not opacity. I also, through trial and error, developed techniques that work better to get a decent look. I found many more that did not. Fortunately with digital you can keep changing things.

I looked at a lot of work by a variety of artists, both digital and conventional, and tried to distill what was likely to work for me. I think you have to do this anyway and also do a lot of drawing to improve. You cannot get a video or take a course like this and expect it to just magically rub off and make you a great artist.

The attached drawings are the best I could do. I am not especially happy with them, but I don't expect significant improvement without putting more time into it than I care to. Better to move on.