New beginnings

This year I have begun a new journey - digital drawing. I have been inspired by a number of students who I have seen in classes this year drawing with digital tablets. I began this journey by doing a Yoobee online course: Introduction to Illustrator, as I have hardy used Illustrator, and when I did it was late 90s or early 2000s. Here are a couple of the drawings I did when I was trying out different drawing methods in Illustrator during that course. These are drawn using the mouse, so you can see they are pretty chunky.

Laughing Owl, Extinct

Piwakawaka - Flying Fantail

Shag at Waikawa Bay

You can probably see already that my favourite theme to explore in Art at the moment is New Zealand birds. I am especially interested in endangered birds and conservation matters, but also like working from my own photos of different birds we come across when out and about in this beautiful country.

So far I have also tried out some drawings using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro on a Samsung tablet and an ipad. For me I found that the functions worked better on the ipad, here are a few examples of my beginnings.

Whio - Blue Duck

Spur Winged Plover

Royal Spoonbill - Mod style

On a recent trip to Australia I had finished reading my book while travelling, and needed something to do for an hour. I discovered that I could also draw using the Notes on my iphone. This wee sketch of the Kookaburra is just drawn with my finger. I actually saw a few out of the train window that inspired this drawing.

Next step : Wacom tablet working in Illustrator... watch this space.

Please feel free to share your digital drawing journey with me also.