You are not a "Digital" Artist; You are an Artist

Getting into digital art? Don’t forget about traditional art too! It’s more useful than you think.

I’ve heard many artists online, both just starting out and those with some experience, say that they’re a digital artist. While this is generally not an untrue statement, sometimes beginners get confused by this and think that “digital” means exclusively digital. But digital art is just a specific part of overall art practice, and being a digital artist very much still involves pen and paper to learn as well.

In fact, your skills in traditional art, with pens, pencils, paints, and paper, carry over to your digital work too, and your digital practice can also improve your traditional work. At a basic level, your sketching skills with pencil can help train your eye and build muscle memory, and that easily carries over digitally. But your use of a pencil or pen also builds skill in how you control your stylus pressure, and practice with shading works just the same, too. I know this doesn’t sound like some big profound statement to say that perspective, construction, values, and all that stuff is the same across both, but sometimes you just need to hear that said out loud; there’s no reason to be afraid of trying things out traditionally.

Plus, there will be circumstances where you might not have your tablet or iPad and you want to draw, or maybe you’re having driver issues and don’t want to deal with that right now. You can scratch that drawing itch with pencil and paper and bring that back digitally later, no biggie. Pencil and paper is always easier to find than having a perfectly working digital setup.

Have you ever taken a break from a drawing to come back to it later with new ideas? Or maybe you were struggling with a drawing, and came back later to draw it easily? The same applies when you switch between digital and traditional. If you’re stuck on a piece and don’t know what to do next, but you still want to draw, go grab your sketchbook and take a break there. When you come back you’ll have a fresh perspective on what to do.

Don’t forget that you don’t need expensive art supplies to draw. You can make great sketches with cheap paper and pencils, and then you won’t need to worry about saving your “good” art for the nice materials. I have a video on this called “Don’t have a Good Sketchbook”; go check it out!

You can even mix workflows in the same drawing! Personally I find it easier and more fun to sketch with pencil and try out a bunch of poses. When I’m happy with something, I take a picture and bring it into Procreate on my iPad to finish it. I’ll refine my sketch and start working on lining and shading then.

So if you’ve been doing mostly digital work for a while, give some traditional sketching a try. You might find some new skills when you switch back and forth! However you draw, go have fun! See you soon!