ED001 The Urban Sketching Handbook Drawing With A Tablet Easy Techniques For Mastering Digital Drawing On Location (2020)

THE URBAN
SKETCHING
HANDBOOK
DRAWING WITH A TABLET
326709 - Urban Sketching Handbook_Drawing with a Tablet_001-112.indd 1 23/10/19 3:16 PM

(F52)_Title: 326709 - Urban Sketching Handbook_Drawing with a Tablet
Text Page: 1
© 2020 Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.
Text © 2020 Uma Kelkar
Illustrations © individual artists
First Published in 2020 by Quarry Books, an imprint of The Quarto Group,
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ISBN: 978-1-63159-807-4
Digital edition: 978-1-63159-8-081
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Digital edition published in 2020
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kelkar, Uma, author.
Title: Drawing with a tablet : easy techniques for mastering digital
drawing on location / Uma Kelkar.
Description: Beverly : Quarry Books, [2020] | Series: Urban sketching
handbooks | Includes index. | Summary: "Urban Sketching Handbook:
Drawing with a Tablet presents step-by-step instruction on how to draw
with a tablet on location"-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019044334 (print) | LCCN 2019044335 (ebook) | ISBN
9781631598074 | ISBN 9781631598081 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Computer drawing--Technique.
Classification: LCC NC915.C65 K45 2020 (print) | LCC NC915.C65 (ebook) |
DDC 741.2--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019044334
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019044335
Design: www.studioink.co.uk
Cover Image, Back Cover Image, and Opposite: Uma Kelkar
Page Layout: Claire MacMaster | barefoot art graphic design
Printed in China

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THE URBAN
SKETCHING
HANDBOOK
DRAWING WITH A TABLET

Easy Techniques for Mastering Digital Drawing on Location
UMA KELKAR

ith a Tablet (F52)_Title: 326709 - Urban Sketching Handbook_Drawing with a Tablet
Page: 2 Text Page: 3
About This Series
The Urban Sketching Handbook series has grown wide and C
deep—from perspective drawing to handling color to reportage,
the series has it covered. Urban sketchers, as a group, have made
sketching hip again, and through these books we make our tricks A
and tips available to scores of people around the world. Urban
I
sketching has molded itself into a movement, gathering followers
and enthusiasts who help people to explore new ways of sketching
and slow their pace in this fast world. K
Tablets are a powerful art medium, and we are pivoting the way we
document and present the world. Gone are the days when
sketching digitally meant being held in a studio on a large desktop
and drawing on an expensive trackpad. But with new media, we
face new fears and new hurdles to overcome. Drawing on a tablet
poses a few challenges, but it also offers hidden opportunities and
new ways of sketching that are now open to all of us. This book
shares the setups of many on-location digital sketchers who have
conquered these hurdles and want you to join them in sketching G
digitally en plein air.
C
A
A
G
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CONTENTS
About This Series 4

Introduction 7
KEYS
I Equipment Basics ............................................ 9
II Get Started with Digital Drawing ................ 21
III Layers Are Everything ................................ 41
IV Going Deeper ........................................... 55
V Leveraging Tools ......................................... 73
GALLERY
I Cityscapes: Indoors ...................................... 86
II Cityscapes: Outdoors .................................. 90
III Landscapes ............................................... 100
Contributors 110
Acknowledgments 111
About the Author 112
Uma Kelkar
Chicago
Procreate

6 | Drawing with a Tablet
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INTRODUCTION
I started sketching once a week in 2009. Soon, it was a painting and a sketch
once a week. Over time, the obsession grew and I had to paint two to three
times a week. As I shared more of my art, I was exposed to a multitude of
sketching styles and techniques. Illustrator’s tools used to require a large up-front
investment in software and hardware, and therefore raised barriers to sketching
en plein air. This limitation was overcome in part with the advent of tablets that
unshackle you from the desk.
This book aims to be a middle man. My goal is to showcase a medium and
show how attractive it is. Unlike other books in the Urban Sketching Handbook
series, this book neither teaches you how to draw nor is it a manual. Instead, it
is your cheat sheet of ideas and inspiration rolled into one. My aim is to help
you feel like you, too, can enlarge your tool set—and you can do it without
forgoing any allegiance to your medium of choice (especially if you are
primarily a traditional media artist).
If you are new to the world of sketching, I showcase a way to start the
journey with the smallest device with the widest tool set available to artists.
Interspersed throughout the book are my methods of drawing, my tricks as
they have evolved, and my general philosophy—these appear alongside the
software tools one uses to draw on a tablet. These personal anecdotes are for
you to take as-is or to tailor to suit yourself. Each user can wield a tool the way
they want to, in an effort to achieve their own personal goals; and accordingly,
I wish this book to be another tool, a stepping stone, for you.
A turning point in two-dimensional representational art occurred when
humans moved to drawing on portable materials, such as paper and canvas,
instead of immovable cave walls or stones. We will be taking portable
canvases and a variety of mixed media with limitless color range along with us.
This is the second major turning point in making art accessible—and you are
a part of it.
UMA KELKAR
Glow of Abundance
Procreate

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KEY I
EQUIPMENT BASICS
If you have a new tablet and are keen to start drawing, don’t let this
chapter stop you. Jump to the “Get Started with Digital Drawing”
chapter (page 21) right away! Come back to this chapter after
you’ve played with the tablet for a few days.
Pressure-sensitive styli were game changers in tablet drawing.
Mobile tablets and drawing apps have been available since 2010.
And on every new release of a tablet, I visited the stores of the
different manufacturers to check out the latest technology—only to be
put off again and again by the slick surface and the unresponsive
styli. That changed in April of 2017, when the Apple Pencil came
out. I remember the moment the drawing responded to my pressure
and my opinion flipped. Within minutes, I walked out of the store
with my first tablet and stylus; and by the end of the first week, I was
surprisingly comfortable with the slickness of my new tools.
DON LOW
Waiting for Her Ride
Procreate
With a tablet, night-time and
other low-light conditions are
now available for sketching.
Please be mindful of your
screen brightness when sharing
the space with others.

Advent
Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Samsung offer tablets with various
operating systems (e.g., iOS , Android, and Windows). There are
several software applications made for drawing on these specific
operating systems.
Most drawing applications run across operating systems, but
a few major ones do not (at the time of this writing). No book will
keep up with the advent of new software and devices. That’s
okay. Our book aims to address common concerns and common
stumbling blocks that will be relevant to anyone getting to know
this technology.
Almost all apps have overcome the primary concerns we
have when we talk about digital sketching: palm rejection and
pressure insensitivity. Palm rejection is the phenomenon when you
want the tablet to take input from your stylus or the fingers that you
are using to draw with—and not from your resting palm. Pressure
insensitivity is when, as in traditional media, if you press down
hard on a drawing tool, the strokes you make are of wider width.
Similarly, we expect digital apps to replicate the pressure
variation with a comparable variable line-width.
Drawing apps have also overcome the lag between our act
of drawing and the drawing actually being visible on the screen.
Think about a time when you were drawing quickly and because
you didn’t see the drawing visible on the tablet, went back to
re-draw and the prior drawing became visible just then. Time lag
meant that you spent time undoing double drawing. This was
especially frustrating when working on delicate parts of your
art work.
The following table is a glimpse of software applications that
are available at the time of this writing.
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Key I: Equipment Basics | 11
Ease of Vector
OS Price Features
Use Drawings
Procreate iOS $ High No
Tayasui iOS, Free High No

Sketches Android,
Windows
Paper by iOS, Free Medium Color blending tool is No

WeTransfer Android, differentiating factor
Windows
Zen Brush 2 iOS, $ High Not your usual sketching app, No

Android, powerful app forcing a zen
Windows mental state
Adobe iOS, Free Medium Cloud integration, works with Yes

Illustrator Android, other Adobe tools
Draw Windows
Adobe iOS, Free Medium Cloud integration, works with

Photoshop Android other Adobe tools
Sketch
Affinity iOS, $$$ Medium Works with tablets and Yes

Designer Android, desktops
Windows
ArtRage iOS, $ Medium Best oil painting brushes thus No

Android, far
Windows
Pixelmator iOS $ Medium Works with tablets and Macs No
Autodesk iOS, Free Medium Yes

Sketchbook Android,
Windows
MediBang iOS, Free Medium Cloud storage, can create No

Android, comic panels, comic font
Windows
Applications as of early 2019.

There are of course many more applications
out there. For the purposes of this book,
we will focus on the ones that are commonly
used and have strong adoption.

Surface Slickness
Some amount of brain reprogramming occurs if you insist on
using the tablet for drawing. If I’ve not drawn on a tablet for
a week, for me personally, the inflection point comes at the
two-hour mark. The point being that you will need some
perseverance to become oblivious to the toothlessness of the
screen. Stick with it, an hour a day; and in three days, you will
forget the worry of slick surfaces.
Even as you become used to the slippery surface, having
a surface cover on your tablet will allow for a better drawing
experience right off the bat. In addition to emulating the feel
of paper, these layers also reduce the glare of the shiny tablet
when you sketch in sunlight or under spotlights. Reduction of
fingerprints on the screen surface is a side benefit. Note: There
may be some reduction of screen brightness caused by
applying a physical barrier on the screen. (To find the latest
paper-like screen protectors, use the term paper-like screen
protectors when you do an internet search.)
How to Sit
Tablets come in a variety of sizes. An iPad Mini can be
carried easily while standing and while drawing in a crowded
museum. For the larger tablets, I recommend sitting down or
resting your carrying arm against a support to stave off arm
fatigue. Remember: The tablets are super portable, but they
are also tethered to you. This means, your posture is similar to
what your posture is when you are drawing in a book. Be
mindful of the tendency to hunch over and be sure to take
routine breaks, especially if you are sitting on a portable stool
and sketching outside. When sketching on your tablet at
home, adjust the tablet to be at an office-keyboard level,
and use a chair that gives the lumbar support you need. S
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STEVE KRAPEK
Steve uses an easel when he
draws on location.
It keeps him from hunching
over. It also allows him
to angle the iPad against the
sun to reduce the glare.
Uma rests her tablet on

a railing just like you would
if you had a sketchbook.
Storage
Though artists who use tablets for drawing never have to worry
about storing art they create in a physical space, they do need a
method of backing up artwork so that it can be accessed even past
the life of the particular device one uses to create it. This is not a
workflow book; therefore, you are requested to find out ways the
app you use has integrated with a cloud storage service for saving
your work. I highly recommend uploading your work on a photo
storage website or using cloud storage.

Charging the Tablet

Instead of packing a bag with paper, supplies, pencils, and
extra ink, you must keep your tablet charged and ready for
sketching on the go. I have a nightly routine of plugging all my
devices in one location—the same spot where I would pick up
my cell phone from before leaving for work the next day. Just
like I am tethered to my cell phone, the iPad is tethered to me
by habit and by the compulsion to draw in the interstitial spaces
in time that life throws at me.
The battery life of your device does limit the amount of time
you can use it, especially in full sun. To extend your drawing
time, find a shaded spot or a spot where you can face your
tablet against the light. Carrying a battery pack is another
option used by most tablet-only artists. Charging times continue
to fall (to our delight), and it is feasible to get your tablet some
added juice while you take a short break from your sketching.
If carrying battery packs weighs down your bag, consider
keeping one in the car, if that’s your mode of transport. Many
cars have a USB charging option that will allow you to charge
a battery pack/tablet interchangeably. Look for the chargers
rated above 10,000 mAh to be able to get a full charge. Also
remember, these battery packs cannot be added to your
checked in luggage when traveling.
Carrying Your Tablet

While you hold an entire studio-worth of paint and material in
your thin tablet, you also carry the risk of losing the entire studio
with one drop of said tablet. It is imperative that you get either
a tablet holder or a protective case for it. The added weight of
the case is not a prohibitive factor. I prefer a holder where the
tablet can swivel while I draw. If your tablet comes with a
keyboard, choose a case that allows you to clip on the
keyboard for extended functionality without having to remove
the case from your tablet.
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ROB SKETCHERMAN
Rob is fully prepared for all-weather
sketching. Stool? Check. Tablet holder?
Check. Sketching without shade?
Check out the charging cable that
he has plugged in to stretch out his
sketching time.

Where Does One Sketch with a Tablet?

Everywhere you could sketch before—and many more places
where you could not!
GABI CAMPANARIO
Waiting at the DMV
Procreate

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PATRICIA GAIGNAT
Times Square with NYC Sketchers
Procreate
PAUL HEASTON
Lisbon to Philly
Procreate

GABI CAMPANARIO
Under the Bridge R
Procreate P
Gabi incorporates sketching while running ROB SKETCHERMAN
his errands and on his commute to work. Live sketching Apple at the Launch
Procreate

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JOSE P. UREÑA You could always sketch at street corners,

but could you paint in a museum? Now you can!
Rijksmuseum
Procreate
UMA KELKAR
Jumble of Things
Procreate

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| 21
KEY II
GET STARTED WITH
DIGITAL DRAWING
A new medium brings new ways to achieve creative satisfaction,
new ways of breaking limitations—but it also brings new fear. This
book addresses this new fear by showcasing achievable results
while getting you accustomed to the tool set.
Art is a balancing tool for me. On days when I have to run a
tight ship with children, travel, day-job logistics, and unknown and
ill-timed emergencies, often art pays the price. These are the exact
days when one needs to engage in drawing and painting. However,
the thought of setting up paints at 11 p.m. and then cleaning them
up before my children wake up keeps me from the very activity that
breathes a new life in me.
UMA KELKAR
Airbnb Sketching
Procreate

With the advent of tablet drawing, I am able to take the entire

color wheel to bed without worrying about spilling and the
associated clean up. On active days, I would not be able to set up
and paint away in the ten minutes one finds in between meetings or
while waiting to pick up someone. With a tablet, I keep on drawing
and building a scene, ten minutes at a time. I can have multiple such
incomplete sketches that I work on, ready to be built upon without
having to worry if I brought along the exact sketchbook that
contained my drawing from a few weeks ago. For a busy citizen
like me, remembering to keep my tablet charged has reduced time
to pack.
Tablets are not a stand-in for traditional media, just as traditional
media are not a stand-in for digital. Once you come to know the
strengths of tablets, you can determine when, how, and where you
use it to fit your lifestyle. I still do lots of traditional art, and I am
becoming a stronger artist because I can use this portable digital
medium. The section on “Leveraging Tools” (page 73) talks about
using tablets to jump-start traditional media projects. For well-versed
tablet artists, this section may be of keen interest.
Lay of the Land

This book is not a manual. It is your cheat sheet of main ideas
and inspiration rolled into one. With new and fast-developing D
apps, writing a book that covers the technical details of all of that P
is unreasonable, overwhelming, and runs counter to the idea of
making digital drawing accessible. We will use the Procreate app
and the ArtRage app as examples. We have tried other apps,
such as SketchUp, Paper by FiftyThree, Draw from Adobe Illustrator,
and ArtFlow, and have found that major concepts carry from one
application to another. You may find some variation in the placement
of buttons, the ease of use of features, and what tools are called.
We will refer to the following action words as shown on a fresh
canvas in Procreate.

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Key II: Get Started with Digital Drawing | 23
UMA KELKAR
Dinner in Rotterdam
Procreate UMA KELKAR
Airport Throng
Procreate

App Terminology Primer
Procreate Brush + Blend

Smudge Layers Alpha Lock Palette
Terms Erase Mode
Other apps Tools Blur Layers is a Lock Layer Sample
may use Symbols for universal Tansparency Options
the brush and term
following eraser*
terms for
similar
functionality
To help cross-pollinate the ideas, this table provides Procreate is by far the
terminology flow between currently popular apps. most popular application for
*Note that when apps were vetted by younger artists they were drawing. It’s powerful and
unable to recognize the eraser symbol, having only seen erasers easy. Its only limitation is
on the ends of pencils. Please assist these young artists at the that it works solely on iOS.
outset. However, since the adoption 7
rate is close to 90% in the
urban sketching community,
this is the application we will
be using as a reference.
Adjustments Freehand Selection Smudge Erase

Actions Transform Paint Layers
Gallery Color
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Return to Gallery
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Brush size
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Brush opacity
Undo and Redo

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0%
al:
t
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ArtRage is a
l versatile tool. It works
on iOS, Android,
and Windows, and
it has a desktop
version as well.
Color Try clicking/moving on each button starting from the top left corner and go
clockwise. Did you feel overwhelmed? Procreate is a powerful tool and very
versatile, and the layout hides its power. Despite this, I’ve found that limiting
choices gives immense relief to those who are new to the tool. It can also be
a valuable strategy for professional artists who want the option of only seeing
their predefined choice.
Every time you need a step-by-step how-to, the application’s manuals,
user forums, and YouTube videos are there to help. In my personal experience,
I find the newer manuals to be well-thought-out and well-illustrated.

Limiting Choices W
Click on the Paint tab. You will see brush types listed in the left column n
and individual brushes in the right column. h
The type Set gives the user an idea of the properties of the available c
brushes. Select a brush by clicking on it: it turns blue in Procreate, and it q
juts out of the menu in ArtRage. Scribble on your screen. Pick one more c
brush and scribble again. It’s delightful and yet, too many to choose from!
In Procreate, make a new set and rename it My Brushes. Add three
brushes to this set to start. You will be able to handle more than three as
you progress with the tool, but at the outset three brushes are sufficient.
I choose, 6B Pencil from Sketching, Studio Pen from Inking, Chalk
a
from Calligraphy, and Rounded Brush from Painting. re
p
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p
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Brush Library Brush Library

Inking My Brushes Round Brush
Monoline
Calligraphy Sketching
Painting Inking
Chalk
Chalk
Calligraphy
Artistic
Painting
Airbrushing Studio Pen
Blotchy Artistic
Textures
Airbrushing
Abstract
68 Pencil
Streaks Textures
Charcoals
Abstract
Elements
Charcoals
Spraypaints Water Pen
Elements
Touchups
Spraypaints
Retro Shale Brush
Touchups
Luminance
Retro
Industrial Brush Pen Luminance
Organic
Industrial
Water
Script Organic
Imported
Water
Painter’s Smudge Imported
Dunce Painter’s Smudge
InkDup Dunce
Painter’s MaxPack InkDup
Painter’s MaxPack
Tip: The concept of limiting choices is a temporary crutch

for working with any app you decide to use. Once again,
we are using Procreate in the book to illustrate the point
for the widest audience.

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When I was new to the medium, I made a cheat sheet for the
new brushes I was seeing because I didn’t quite remember
how each one of them behaved. There are more than 100
combinations possible. I picked about twelve at first and
quickly whittled down to three favorite ones that I thought
could cover the entire range of drawing and painting.
The life of a cheat sheet is short but important. Like a walker for
a young child, the cheat sheet allows you to play and keep a visual
reference ready. Beside each symbol you draw on your cheat sheet,
put down the name of the brush you used. I also experiment with how
much the line-width changes by drawing a line with steadily increasing
pressure. Then I also shade in a rectangle with my stylus tilted to
see if a particular brush responds to tilt.

Now click on the color circle in the top right corner. When
you do that, you will see a palette section on the bottom.
In the Palettes section, make a new palette, rename it My
Palette, set it to default. Now, switch to Disc mode on the
bottom. You should see My Palette at the bottom of the color
wheel with no colors in it. Choose a color on the color wheel
and tap in My Palette. I start off with three colors—usually two
warms and one cool.
Palettes Colors
New Drink Set Default
ri
fo
My Palette Default
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s
Easy Set Default
w
My Palette
in
a
w
Woman's March Set Default
fi
b
a
Disc Classic Value Palettes
o
JensK DUNCE COLORS extended Set Default a
Disc Classic Value Palettes

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Samples
ArtRage calls the selected color set Samples at the bottom

right. It also allows you to have a reference picture in the corner Tip: Whenever you
for you to sketch from. click on Brush or Color,
you will always have
preferred and limited
choices, making
switching between
The Blur tool allows you to blend colors in the tools easy. If you want
selected layer—which is usually the layer you are to match your colors
working in. Erase allows you to erase marks made perfectly, picking from
the palette is easier than
in the selected layer—which is again, the layer you picking from the color
are working in. wheel.
Play with these tools so that you experience
what erasing with different brush tips does. When I
first began to use the app, I made a cheat sheet of
brushes to keep the names straight, printed it out,
and stuck it on my desk when I was drawing. After
only three hours, I committed the names to memory
and I no longer needed a cheat sheet.

Drawing Everyday Objects L

Let’s start drawing with our limited palette and limited brush set, to
and begin by drawing common things around the house. Line In
drawings are a great way to get used to the brush types.
SHARI BLAUKOPF
Alice
Procreate
Do you have pets at home
who can hold a pose?
KAVYA SHANKAR
Water Bottle
Procreate
Set up your own still-life objects
to draw from as you get
acclimated to your tablet.
Tip: In Procreate, the top slider

on the left side allows you to
reduce/enlarge your tool nib.
Pick a brush to use and play with
the slider to see if it’s easier to
draw with a larger nib. Do you
need to reduce it for drawing
details? If you are right-handed, C
you can use your left thumb to
P
move the slider if your tablet is
resting on a table.

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Line work is also suitable for people sketching. Not all tools are right
to capture people in motion. In Procreate, the brushes listed under
Inking and Sketching are suitable for quick capture.
ROB SKETCHERMAN Did you notice, you can draw with white or use
Figures the eraser to draw as shown on the backpack?
Procreate
ENRIQUE FERRANDO PEREZ

Commuter
Procreate
ENRIQUE FERRANDO PEREZ

Minimal Figure
Procreate

UMA KELKAR
Collection of an Indian Kitchen
Procreate

Text Page: 32
SHARI BLAUKOPF
Asparagus
Procreate
DON LOW
Back Alley,
Chinatown
Procreate
From everyday
objects to everyday
scenes, line work can
capture it all.

Painting Everyday Objects

One can also paint everyday objects like one would paint in an
opaque medium like gouache. Try using Gouache or Hemp
in a single layer.
When I say paint, I mean to differentiate the act of coloring and
building shapes on the canvas, as opposed to building a shape by
making a line drawing and then inserting color (as you would in a
coloring book). For sheer portability reasons, the majority of the
urban sketching community uses watercolor along with pen and ink.
The strength of these popular media is their transparency; they
emanate light, which is most attractive for the viewers of the artwork.
However, if you want to try mediums that don’t have transparency
as their strength, but work better being opaque (such as gouache
and oil), your tablet allows for that.
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STEVE SANDOVAL
Tip: What other freedoms does digital drawing SF Woman Knitting
give you beyond the simulated looks of other
Procreate
media? Well, for one, if watercolors tied our
hands to having to put down the lightest colors
first, having a tablet has turned the tables on it!
You can slather on a darkest blue and come
back with a light yellow without making it look
green or muddy. Also, there’s no more waiting
for oils to dry!
UMA KELKAR
19th Avenue, San Francisco
Procreate
Uma adds colored shapes using a wide brush,
and so does Steve. Observe how fresh a
lighter color such as orange can look on the
background of an opaque cool.

Adding Transparency to Everyday Objects

Color adds interest, but transparency adds volume to objects.
Play with the transparency setting of your brushes to see how
you can paint a glass of juice. Every time you recolor, how
does overlapping paint behave?
Tip: Make cheat sheets

with varying transparency
and with color variation for
the brushes you’ve added
to your curated set.
UMA KELKAR
San Francisco
Procreate

Text Page: 36
SEV COLMET
DAAGE
Transat
Procreate
Semitransparent fills are
useful for making shadows
work as well.
PATRICIA GAIGNAT
Neighborhood Strip Mall
Procreate
The key to creating oil/acrylic/

gouache-like textures en plein air
is to use the least transparency
or maximum opacity.

Smudge Tool E
Using a traditional medium such as charcoal allowed the artist 1
to smudge, blur, and soften edges with a thumb or a tortillon. 2
Oil lends itself to blending by use of a feathered brush. What
about for hard pencil marks, crayons, and dried watercolors?
The Smudge tool can actually help you develop textures 3
and gradients long after colors have been placed. This
removes the time pressure of blending in watercolors only
when wet.
4
ANANDA ARAN
Bridge Blur
Procreate
Softening the edges in just selected areas allows
you to move the viewer’s eyes through your sketch.

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Exercises
1. Draw a pencil, a coffee mug, flowers in a vase, living room furniture, shoes.
2. Color the shoes, the mug, the flowers. Was it easier to use transparent
colors when painting objects made from glass? Was it bothersome to have
to cover up the lines of the flowers?
3. Step outside and head to a train station or any place with a queue. People
are often looking down at their phones—and being great drawing models.
At home, when my children are focused on homework, a video game, or
reading, or even when they are sick, I make them my models.
4. Do you want to draw shadows at the end of your drawing and yet have
them move under the objects you’ve drawn? Then let’s see what drawing
layers can do for you.
Tip: Are you drawing

and yet you see
nothing happening on
the screen? Check if
you’ve selected the
background color
by mistake!
UMA KELKAR
Lemonade out of Lemons
Procreate
KATE BARBER
Chicago Bean
Procreate
With two brushes and a
limited palette, Kate man-
ages to capture the whole
tourist scene.

C
A
F
la
b
if
se

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| 41
KEY III
LAYERS ARE
EVERYTHING
The ability to build artwork in independent or dependent layers is
the key strength of digital media. What does it mean to have
independent layers?
We are familiar with layers in traditional media: If you make a
collage with the printed words glued on underlying artwork, one
would say that the artwork lies on one layer and the printed words
on another. Likewise, if you use watercolors, you know that you put
down a wash of color and when you paint on top of this wash,
you have added another layer.
When you create digitally, this first wash is equivalent to a layer.
All digital media allow us to add layers without having to wait for
pigments to dry. And you can edit your first wash after you have
added the twentieth layer on it!
HUGO COSTA
Calle Paz
Adobe Sketch
First and foremost, applying
layers allows you to add color
behind the line drawing even
if you draw first and color
second.

Using Layers
Gallery
Click the
Layers Layers menu to
Foreground see layers of art
Closest hill being built. It helps
Trees to rename layers
as you work and
Blue Mountain
to use names that
Couds
make sense to you.
Background
Background color
A composite drawing looks like this (below) to the viewer and to you, the drawer, as long as
all the layers are kept visible.
(from right to left) Layer 1: Background color;
Layer 2: Background drawing color;
Layer 3: Drawing layer; Final image

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Key III: Layers Are Everything | 43
Drawing Vignettes and

Journaling
In the previous chapter, we drew
everyday objects (see Exercises,
s page 39). Everyday objects can also
be collected and arranged to inspire
interesting compositions.
u. Similarly, we can also use several
images done at an event to build a
cumulative image as reportage.
Everyday objects
put into a collection.

In the following set of images, we see that sketches done

over the course of a day can stand in as your journal page. o
A cumulative sketch
done in Bath, UK.
Sketch 1 done on layer 1. Sketch 2 done on layer 2. Sketch 3 done on layer 3.
When you are drawing on a new layer, imagine yourself having a

fresh canvas each time. On this fresh canvas, draw your drawing without s
being encumbered by the other sketches you made in the day. You can
change how each image contributes to the final collection by using the
Transform tool or by changing the order of layers.
It is true that more professional images will require thinking through the
interaction of these several images. However, at this time, we are interested
in having each sketch be strong so that the collective is strong.

Text Page: 44
Let’s look at the monocolor collection and how layers affect its
overall look.
Three-layered drawing. The Selection tool can make the

drawing on each layer move up, down,
left, right. Try it!
3.
Select the layer and then move it See what we did there? Moving a
above or below the other layers. layer changed what’s on the top.
The positioning of layers becomes even more important when painting

scenes in a traditional sense, from background to foreground.

Drawing and Painting Using Traditional Methods

Many a fine artist starts painting from background to foreground. If you carry
tablets to sketch landscapes, this method is available to you via layers, too.
If you plan out a scene and dissect it into somewhat neat planes, then you can
manipulate values of each layer independently, move them, and/or scale them
without having to erase a drawing!
Gallery
Natural
Layers cascade of layers,
Foreground from farthest to
Closest hill closest to you in
Blue Mountain
the scene.
Trees
Couds
Background
Background color
Gallery Moving
Layers layers by moving
Foreground trees behind the
Closest hill mountains: This
Blue Mountain is not a problem.
Trees In fact, it allows
Couds us to make things
Background
go behind other
Background color
objects. It also
allows us to keep
certain elements
on the very
top—untouched
by background
N
washes or other
treatments you give P
a layer.

Text Page: 46
MUTIARA CININTA
Harbor Bridge Walk
Procreate
The clouds were colored
in as a shape, then moved
lower in layers so that they
appear to be behind the
structures.
DON LOW "The night scenes in Geylang were really unique. The streetlights
Night Life would throw a yellow glow over the buildings and throw long moving
shadows over the streets. The fluttering neon lights provided additional
e Procreate
flavor to the dimly lit walls. For this sketch, I began with a toned
ground (filling the background layer with a color), and drew lines on a
new layer. I sandwiched another layer between the line-art layer and
the background layer in Procreate. On this layer, I added grays and
white for shadows and light."

Tip: Advanced users should explore using layer interaction

to achieve interesting effects. Each layer is not just an
opaque drawing on top of another. One can multiply
colors, darken layers dependent on underlying drawing,
mask areas for coloring, and so forth. The options are near
endless. At the time of writing this book, Affinity Designer,
Procreate, and ArtRage allow for layer interaction.
Layers
Inserted Image M
Opacity 100%
Normal
Multiply
Linear Burn
Cool Burn
Darken
Darken Color A
O
A
Darken Lighten Contrast Difference Color
Layer 12 N
New group
Layer 3 N
Inserted Image N
UMA KELKAR
Procreate Layer Actions
Procreate

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Blend Mode
Normal Dissolve
Highlight Shadow
Tint Watercolor
Darken Multiply
Opacity 100%
Color Burn Linear Burn
Lighten Screen Lock Transparency
Color Dodge Linear Dodge Blend: Normal
Overlay Soft Light Bump: Maximum
Hard Light Vivid Light Clear Layer
Linear Light Pin Light Delete Layer
Hard Mix
Difference Exclusion Transform Layer
Hue Saturation Copy to iOS Clipboard
Color Luminosity Duplicate Layer
Export Layer
0%
al:
t
Me
UMA KELKAR UMA KELKAR "I played with three layers affecting
ArtRage Layer Blend Grocery Shopping each other: there is the pink feathered
Option and Self-Portrait bird on the bottom, followed by an
on-location sketch in a grocery store,
ArtRage Procreate
and a self-portrait."

Tip: In some apps, layers can be grouped together. This

allows you to move a set of layers together and to turn them
visible/invisible together.
P
P
STEVE SANDOVAL
T
View from Yogurt Haven Tip: You can set aside a fresh canvas with many empty
fo
layers and layer groupings and rename them to be
Procreate Pocket to
background/middle ground/foreground or line work/
paintings/shadows, along with groups labeled as group
top/group lettering. Next time you are upon a scene, you
duplicate/copy this canvas and start drawing. You will save
time from naming, making layers and groups.

Text Page: 50
ROBERT LAINE
Priory Landscape
Procreate
The simplicity of this scene is riveting: airbrushed, gentle sky
followed by another layer of landscape. Here the layers seem
to actually build distance between foreground and background.

P
P
b
c
fo
I’
te
UMA KELKAR
At the Bakery
Procreate
This image has three layers: One is for a rough drawing.
The second is for coloring, and the third layer is for the
drawing that stays at the top. (In this case, the third layer
was done before the coloring.)

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Painting Clouds
Procreate comes with a Clouds brush preinstalled. This
brush is useful for drawing light and semitransparent
clouds. For clouds that feel that they are full of moisture or
for ones that feel like they are weighing themselves down,
I’ve explored using brushes with wider strokes and strong
textures to make emphatic clouds with wispy borders.
b
Using inbuilt Cloud brush (a) versus Hemp (b).

A
P

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| 55
KEY IV
GOING DEEPER
We are at a point where we have basic technical know-how under
our belt. There are two other tools that greatly affect the speed of
drawing, and we will focus on those now.
Selection Tool
The Selection tool allows you to select an area of the canvas that
remains active for drawing/blending/erasing. Typically, it is used
to select delicate shapes that need to be colored finely without the
color spilling outside this delicate shape. It is also used to move
the selected shape to a different layer.
URMILA MENON
Alathur Market
Procreate

Gallery
A fill tool usually In
needs a drawing c
boundary so that it
colors just the drawn o
shape. With the
selection tool, you can
color in a selected
area without drawing
an outline for it. Once N
you have filled in the P
selected area, you can
N
exit the Selection Tool
o
mode and you won’t
see a drawn outline. "
D
Automatic Freehand Rectangle Ellipse c
Add Remove Invert Duplicate Feather Clear T
I
to
c
th
I
th
T
SHEILA R. PUTRI
Subway Riders
Procreate
The shadows on fabrics are often done
this way, so that one can use a big brush-tip over
a carefully selected area and fill it up quickly.
SEV COLMET DAAGE

Gare des Chantiers
Procreate
This picture used the Selection tool to keep the
inner quadrangle as an active part of the layer
where one could color.
"It was a ten-minute drawing, and it was too
cold for my iPad which ran out of battery. But if
you have ever tried to paint with watercolor in a
very cold place, you know how it is difficult, too,
because water freezes on your brush!"

Text Page: 56
Key IV: Going Deeper | 57
In addition to coloring, the typical uses of the Selection tool include:

choosing delicate areas for erasing, choosing areas to add texture
onto, and readjusting the size of the selected parts of a drawing.
SEV COLMET DAAGE

Novembre
Procreate
Notice how selective blend is used to create a sense
of directional light.
"While I was waiting for my friend in the Marais
District in Paris, I suddenly felt the need to light a
cigarette. In France, November is the official No
Tobacco Month. Plus, I had quit smoking. Therefore,
I had two options: buying a pack of cigarettes at the Tip: You can add a layer while in
tobacco store—you can recognize them with the red Select mode. In this new layer, you
carrot lit sign—or getting a slice of chocolate cake at can color within the bounds of the
the bakery. Fortunately, my friend arrived before selected area without having to
I made my decision. I had just enough time to draw draw the shape again!
the bakery and later I added the red color on the
Tobacco banner to remind me that Red = Forbidden."

Transparency Lock
The idea behind transparency lock is to lock the shapes you
have blocked in so you can color over them without having to
be careful. This tool is named differently across applications.
We will use Alpha Lock as that’s the terminology within tr
Procreate. In the Procreate app, with a two-finger swipe to the b
sh
right on the layer of your choice, you can enter Alpha Lock a
mode. What this mode does is that it allows you to edit—paint, sh
smudge, and erase only from what’s been drawn before. sh

Text Page: 58
Image a shows the layer that has all the

tree shapes drawn in. Image b shows the
background color on a lower layer. Image c
shows when we Alpha Lock the layer in Image
a and then use Soft Airbrush, it colors only the
shapes that were originally drawn. Image d
shows refinement of strokes using Alpha Lock.

Now consider what you can do with using the Selection tool S
and Alpha Lock together. D
to
Gallery o
to
a
c
In the above example, both the Alpha Lock and Selection tools have been
used so that, without drawing an outline on the two rectangles, only the parts of the
rectangles that have been selected have the light-yellow texture. Using Alpha Lock
alone would have allowed us to color both the rectangles completely, whereas,
selecting parts of it lets us color fast without having to be careful with the strokes.
The word alpha is a legacy term associated with images

that have opacity control: Digital images were saved in a
format that had red, green, blue, and alpha channels. The
alpha channel was used to determine how a pixel is rendered
when two colors blend.
Exercise
Play with the Selection tool on a premade sketch. If you are
afraid to do so, Import a photo of your room onto your canvas
and play with the Selection tool to pick just the walls. You can
choose Freehand Selection or Automatic among other
choices. Play with both. When all the walls are selected in your
image, color them with a new color. Want to make it more
realistic? Choose to play with the layer’s transparency and also
layer effects such as Multiply that we learned in the last
chapter. Once you start using the Selection tool, are there
options so that you can automatically choose the entire wall?
Some apps have these features, and exploring is just a click
and a few seconds away.

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Scaling and Moving

Drawing on a tablet allows us to resize the drawings we make
to fit our compositions after the fact. For that, select the area
of interest using the Selection tool, then use the Transform tool
to move or to resize the selected artwork. (Note: In ArtRage,
a layer can be transformed, but parts of artwork on one layer
cannot be transformed at this time.)
a b
c
Sometimes, it’s easier to draw figures at a larger
scale (Image a), and then resize them down to a
rough estimate (Image b), to make proportions work
(Image c).

D
If
m
o
G
fi
p
p
DON LOW
Sketching at a Food Court
Procreate
"Procreate has offered me a quick way to capture things without
worrying about paper or pen quality, and without having too
many things to carry in my bag. I use ‘undo’ sparingly. Though I
resize from time to time, as I find it hard to gauge the expanse of
my drawing at the beginning. I seek a good solution for that but
for now, I make some rough marks on full canvas and then zoom
into the area to start drawing."
Exercise
Using the duplicate layer feature in any of the
digital drawing apps, replicate a forest of trees by
merely drawing one tree. Flip a tree, scale it down
to 50% of the original, move it around the canvas.
Use Alpha Lock to color a few of the trees a
different color. Make all the layers visible together
and see your forest of trees!
A

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Drawing Grid
If you find yourself grappling with perspective, try inserting a
manual perspective grid on a layer at the bottom; you can turn it
off after the drawing is done. You can also use a built-in Drawing
Guide from Procreate app. When playing with this tool, you will
find many more variations that can help you to manage
perspective to your liking. For example, I find the two-point
perspective grid is useful for cityscapes.
A cube drawn using the two-point perspective grid.

1
PAUL HEASTON P
Perspective Superimposed
Procreate

Text Page: 64
PAUL HEASTON Paul Heaston has become so skilled at managing

16th Street Coffee Shop perspective that he doesn’t need a perspective grid
any longer.
Procreate
"My approach to perspective in a wide-angle or
'fish eye' kind of sketch is mostly intuitive. Applying a
perspective grid after the fact reveals just how intui-
tive and spontaneous that approach is. Even the hori-
zon is curved. When I tackle a scene like this, I start
with the foreground and work my way back roughly
in clockwise layers, keeping track of important things
such as scale, proportion, and foreshortening, while
not being too concerned about vanishing points and
completely accurate angles."
PAUL HEASTON
Denver Bicycle Cafe
Procreate

Customizing Brushes
Depending on how your individual hand moves and/or how
the pressure curves for the stylus are set, you will, over time, feel
the need for a brush to have some properties that reflect your
style. Someone might want a more jagged edge to their brush
shape, more widening of the stroke when you press even
slightly, or more random texture marks. While the apps allow
for customizing brushes, there are also other creatives who
make and sell these brushes online. Look to online forums for
the latest information on new brush sets and new brush makers
for your app.
Textures
Adding texture to a drawn shape gives it a more realistic feel.
When you use the Selection tool coupled with Alpha Lock,
adding texture becomes easy and fast—and that’s vital for
on-the-go sketching.
Im
Im
h
sm

Text Page: 66
d
Image a has a drawing layer that is Alpha Locked.
Image b has the texture added. Then, Image c
has color added to a selected area, and Image d
smudges and adds a layer of shadow.

URMILA MENON
Untitled
Procreate
Urmila employs textured
DON LOW U
strokes to fill shapes.
This imparts whimsy Chinatown Singapore P
to her pieces. Procreate T
to
w

Text Page: 68
UMA KELKAR
Uma’s Studio
Tip: Advanced users can
Procreate
import textures from
The window patterns would’ve been time-consuming nature, use the Mask
to do by hand; instead, using a texture only on the and Multiply functions to
windows sped things up. add more textures to their
suite or save the textures
to their brushes. Not all
apps will allow this.

Painting Reflections
Duplicate the layer you drew on. Flip the duplicate layer.
Lower its opacity. Depending on how stretched the
reflections are, you may scale or distort the reflected layer.
For the ripples, I have found that instead of using the inbuilt
Water brush, the Oceans brush (used to smooth out)
gave me the best effect.
a
Top sketch duplicated and flipped in
Image a and with smudged-out ripples
in Image b.

Text Page: 70

U
P
"
th
I
e

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| 73
KEY V
LEVERAGING TOOLS
You have now added digital media to your quiver of tools. It grows
stronger as you practice and as applications develop.
Can we do more than what is obvious with digital media?
Stretching each tool to its maximum, to the point of absurdity is my
obsession. It’s a philosophical choice really: to know the bounds of
a medium, and then either I grow or the medium grows, or I dislike
the results and I scale back. In my engineering job, I often know the
extreme operating conditions of my designs—so that when I have a
failure in the field, I can match the failure signature with my previous
research and then guess what might have occurred to cause such a
failure. Similarly, when I see a painting not working for me, I can
objectively say what the failure mechanism was. Art is more than
such a surgical dissection of it. I am not that pedantic about it either,
but I like to let my art, knowledge, and engineering grow on the
cusp of comfort and discomfort. It does not mean I encourage you,
the reader, to push such boundaries at all. Take what you will of this
chapter, experiment as much as you like, and report back. You have
my respect for persisting—wherever you are on that journey.
HUMBERTO MARUM
Untitled
Procreate
"During the week, on my drives and walks, I do a series of
thumbnails, five to ten minutes, all on the same page. When
I have the chance, I pick one view and go back and do an
elaborate version."

Mixed Media
For years artists have mixed pencil, watercolor, acrylic, crayons,
collage, and other sculptural bits to create interesting textures
and pieces that evoke more emotions than one medium can.
To this mixture, how about we add digital media?
The bare minimum hybrid between traditional and digital
media for me has been ink plus Procreate. First, import an
image of your line sketch onto a layer. On the layer with the
imported line drawing, you can use the Selection tool to select
the background and erase it or you can select just the line
drawing and move it to a separate layer. Adding more layers
under the line drawing will allow you to color under the outline,
or adding layers above it will allow you to add prominent
calligraphy or other digital sketches for example.
a
Image a is the native photograph I
imported onto a layer. Image b shows
it with the background removed. Image
c shows the coloring layers I inserted
under the drawing. Further line emphasis
on the top gave me the final composi-
tion, Image d.

Text Page: 74
Key V: Leveraging Tools | 75

Employing Distortion
The word distortion has a negative connotation attached to it.
We are going to use the Distort tool exactly like that—as a
tool—a means to an end. The reason the following cloud sketch
was made was to capture the enormity of clouds and the stark
color contrast in them. However, the flat linear representation of
them didn’t have as much impact as distorting them to bulge in
the middle did. To experiment for yourself, click on the Transform
tool and play with the options that appear on the bottom of the
page. Distort and Warp are two I enjoy. Distort allows us to
distort at the edges while Warp allows us to move the
intermediate points within the selected layer.
Y
P
Gallery
Freeform Uniform Distort Warp
Advanced Mesh Flip Horizontal Flip Vertical Rotate 45˚ Fit to Canvas Interpolation Reset
F
Nearest Neighbour Bilinear Bicubic
P
This is an example of only slight

distortion, but it’s necessary for the
clouds to emote the weight they carry.

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UMA KELKAR
Yosemite Tunnel View
Procreate
UMA KELKAR You want to tell a story of your day—but not in a represen-
Family Trip to Yosemite tational way? Sure, go ahead, distort the sketch you did in
the morning to fit into the sketch you did at night. There are
Procreate
no rules other than to enjoy yourself.

Exercise
Draw a cloth pattern on a towel on a drying line. Using Distort, make
the towel move as though a gust of wind came and blew it upwards.
STEVE KRAPEK Steve captured these images over the course of

Diary of a Construction Site months, keeping tabs on the construction and then
making this collage to give us a status update.
Procreate

Text Page: 78
Tip: "I use scaling and moving to make digital

collages. I draw big using as many layers as I want.
Upon finishing the drawing, I make a group of all
layers, name it as Sketch 1, then add another layer
and start another drawing. When I am ready to make
a collage, I can scale groups just like I can scale an
individual layer." (Steve Krapek)

Larger and Intricate Pieces T

Often in watercolor painting, making the exact color as the E
day before is not practical. With a fixed palette ready as well h
as the Color Picker tool, color matching is a breeze on a la
tablet. This allows us to easily paint an intricate scene over th
days. e
The sketch below was made across two days, one hour daily. m
It has employed the color matching, scaling, moving, blending, th
painting, drawing, and selecting features of the medium.
B
U
s
o
to
o
d
d
B
T
le
s
fo
to
lo
"
d
UMA KELKAR
a
Chicago Foyer m
Procreate y

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Tablet As Compositional Tool for Any Medium

Elements of design have not changed even though the medium
has. All digital drawing apps allow for copying and duplicating
layers including copying and duplicating part of a sketch. On
the duplicated layers of original artwork, I play with tools to
experiment and to learn how I can either avoid the same
missteps next time I paint or use the nuggets that fall out of
the experimentation to improve my digital drawing.
Blur for Distance

Using Copy/Paste, I was able to make three copies of the
same sketch. Then, I duplicated the layer that had three copies
of the same sketch. On each duplicate layer, I used the blur
tool to see how much of an effect I wanted and what I gained
or lost with it.
We know that things that are farther from us seem less
definite. Artificially smoothing out the mountain range added
distance to my sketch.
Blur to Regain Focus

To focus our view on the points of interest, often we intentionally
leave out details from other areas that are acting as a support
structure to the point of interest in a composition. Often, we
forget this aim and get caught up in too many details. The Blur
tool can once again allow us to see how many details can be
lost without losing the essence of a drawing.
"I chose a canvas size that would represent the span of the scene I was
depicting. You can change the canvas size before you start drawing:
a larger canvas needs to store more pixels. Depending on how much
memory your drawing app uses, the app limits the number of layers
you can add because it needs to save more pixels on each layer."

UMA KELKAR
Blur as a
Compositional Tool
Procreate
Softening the mountains developed distance in the composition.

V
H
it
S
m
o
n
fo
Original artwork
O
S
a
fi
c
w
Blurring caused focus to emerge
fr

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Value Correction for Distance and Focus

Here is a regular painting I made en plein air. I photographed
it using the tablet and imported it onto a layer. Using the
Selection tool, I was able to cut out parts of the painting and
move them onto a separate layer. I could play with the opacity
of each layer to see how much difference in values I really
needed between the background, middle ground, and
foreground for the focus to stay within the middle ground.
Other Cool Features

Some digital applications allow you to record your strokes
and compile them into a video that can be exported to a
file on your device or uploaded to YouTube or other online
communities. Making videos is not the aim of this book, but
watching someone else’s video about how they built their sketches
from the ground up can be instructive as well as entertaining.

Thumbnail Tool
Create monochromatic thumbnails or make
multicolored thumbnails as part of your painting
preparation. Duplicate thumbnails to make
changes in each one and compare them side
by side.
Both Humberto and Jose make Notan
sketches using their iPads. Notan sketches
explore the harmony of a composition after
decomposing it into three values, dark, light,
and halftone. A harmonious thumbnail informs
further development in whichever medium it’s
pursued.
ROB SKETCHERMAN
High Line NYC
Procreate
JOSE P. UREÑA
Madrid Airport
Procreate HUMBERTO MARUM
Notan Sketches
Procreate

Text Page: 84

GALLERY I
CITYSCAPES
INDOORS
UMA KELKAR HUGO COSTA

The Cricket Match Is On! Apartment Interior – Manhattan
Procreate Adobe Sketch

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Gallery I: Cityscapes Indoors | 87

ROB SKETCHERMAN
Waiting for Better Health
Procreate
W
P
PAUL HEASTON "I like opportunities to show indoor and outdoor scenes at
St. Mark’s Coffee House the same time, so I chose a seat by the large garage-style
windows at St. Mark’s to make a sketch. Something about
Procreate
the asymmetry of the dark, busy cafe interior extending far
away to the right contrasted with the parked cars and tree
branches on the left appealed to me."

Text Page: 88
Gallery I: Cityscapes Indoors | 89
PAUL HEASTON UMA KELKAR

Whittier Cafe IKEA
Procreate Procreate

GALLERY II
CITYSCAPES
OUTDOORS
C
STEVE SANDOVAL "I have a strange obsession with trying to make mundane P
Gas Station scenes look interesting. With both of these I figured if I
exaggerated color and pushed for a pastel-like feel with lost-
Procreate
and-found edges, I could give them a bit more character."

Text Page: 90
Gallery II: Cityscapes Outdoors | 91
UMA KELKAR
Chicago
Procreate

ROB SKETCHERMAN "This bustling neighborhood was the focus of an Urban Sketch-
Sheung Wan Stores ers HK sketchwalk, and it is known for its dried seafood goods. S
Despite it being a Sunday morning, shoppers filled the sidewalks P
Procreate
and delivery men constantly rushed past."

Text Page: 92
DON LOW
Kampong Glam
Procreate
ROB SKETCHERMAN "With minutes to go before boarding, it’s sometimes

Singapore Airport easiest to capture a scene with only lines and a simple
s color scheme."
Procreate

MUTIARA CININTA
Balmoral Beach U
Procreate P

Text Page: 94
SHEILA R. PUTRI "I love this angle as I could capture the rest of
Untitled the details inside the cart: ingredients, stoves,
condiments, cables, etc. We can see the authentic
Procreate
mess of it."

H
P

Text Page: 96
SHEILA R. PUTRI "This was done on my way to Heathrow Airport, London. It was
Heathrow Airporters 1 a long ride and I could spend some time capturing peoples’
gestures. I could even overhear how the couple in front of me
Procreate
were going for a holiday to Asia. We can always capture
humanity in public transports."
UMA KELKAR
Best of The Netherlands
Procreate


Text Page: 98
HUGO COSTA
Centro Cultural Bancaja – Valencia
Adobe Sketch

GALLERY III
LANDSCAPES
UMA KELKAR
California Spring A
Procreate P

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Gallery III: Landscapes | 101
UMA KELKAR "I was stuck in traffic and I had a choice: either
Almaden Lake I fume behind the wheel, or I pull over, draw,
let the traffic subside, and then resume my
Procreate
journey. An iPad is a portable studio, but it has
also inserted itself in situations where I would’ve
been dejected."

F
P
A
Z
F
P

Text Page: 102
UMA KELKAR
Fortini Trail 1
Procreate
UMA KELKAR "The key to successes with Zen Brush 2 is to slow

Almaden down. The application really does what its name sug-
gests. With only one layer available, two colors, and
ZenBrush
limited undo actions, this application forces you to learn
to simplify. I absolutely love this as it comes closest to
replicating the Chinese brush painting style with ink."
UMA KELKAR
Fortini Trail 2
Procreate


Text Page: 104
UMA KELKAR
Rotterdam
Procreate

ROB SKETCHERMAN
Pat’s Beautiful Garden
Procreate
R
P
ANDREY MALYKH
Untitled
Procreate

Text Page: 106
ANDREY MALYKH
Rumyantsev Garden, St. Petersburg
Procreate

ANDREY MALYKH Andrey plays with his landscapes until they read
Summer Landscape, Toksovo like a large oil painting. He clearly chooses mood
over accuracy.
Procreate

Text Page: 108

CONTRIBUTORS
Ananda Cansino Aran Humberto Marum Patricia Gaignat Steve Krapek D
Spain Australia/Portugal USA USA
www.anandaaran.com www.instagram.com/ reclinerart.wordpress.com www.instagram.com/ b
maun_marum steve__krapek T
Andrey Malykh Paul Heaston
Russia Jose Pablo Ureña USA Steve Sandoval b
www.instagram.com/ Costa Rica www.instagram.com/ USA c
barindoma www.instagram.com/ paulheaston www.instagram.com/
jpurbansketches sketchinsteve Q
Don Low Rob Sketcherman h
Singapore Kate Barber Hong Kong Urmila Menon
www.donlow-illustration. USA www.sketcherman.com Hong Kong m
com www.instagram.com/ www.instagram.com/ L
kate5667 Robert A. Laine urmimenon
Enrique Ferrando Perez United Kingdom w
Spain Kavya Shankar robertlaine.artweb.com
www.instagram.com/ USA
eferrandoperez www.instagram.com/ Severine Comet Daage T
kavyasart France a
Gabi Campanario www.sevthequeen.com
USA Mutiara Cininta
instagram.com/ Indonesia Shari Blaukopf
gabicampanario www.instagram.com/ Canada
mutiaracininta www.shariblaukopf.com
Hugo Barros Costa
Spain Omar Jaramillo Sheila R. Putri
www.instagram.com/ Germany Indonesia
yolahugo www.instagram.com/ www.instagram.com/
omar_paint sheilasplayground

Text Page: 110
| 111
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Deepest gratitude to the artists who allowed me to include their work in this
book. Your work adds depth to the book’s content and breadth to its appeal.
Thank you to Gabi Campanario, the founder of Urban Sketchers, for not only
building a support system for sketchers around the globe but also for
connecting me with Mary Ann Hall—the ever practical and prompt editor at
Quarto Publishing. David Martinell, thank you for your professional insights and
help. Also, designer Claire MacMaster, of barefoot art graphic design,
managing editor John Gettings, copy-editor Jenna Patton, and proofreader
Lorraine Savage. A big thank you to the Urban Sketchers community at large
who inspires and holds me daily.
To my rock, Mahesh, and my children, Arin and Aarav, who let me do my thing
and accept this obsession with art as a routine part of life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Uma Kelkar is an artist and engineer who lives with her family in San Jose,
California. Originally from India, she painted as a teenager while teaching free
weekend classes for children.
She regained her practice after a hiatus of sixteen years and has not
stopped since. She teaches workshops locally and internationally, at the Urban
Sketchers’ International Symposia and through their workshop program.
Juggling a tech job and a growing art practice is central to her lifestyle. She is
a strong believer in cross-pollination and believes that being an engineer makes
her a better artist and being an artist makes her a better engineer.

Text Page: 112

ED001 The Urban Sketching Handbook Drawing With A Tablet Easy Techniques For Mastering Digital Drawing On Location (2020)

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THE URBAN

DRAWING WITH A TABLET

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DRAWING WITH A TABLET

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About This Series 4

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Tayasui iOS, Free High No

Paper by iOS, Free Medium Color blending tool is No

Zen Brush 2 iOS, $ High Not your usual sketching app, No

Adobe iOS, Free Medium Cloud integration, works with Yes

Adobe iOS, Free Medium Cloud integration, works with

Affinity iOS, $$$ Medium Works with tablets and Yes

ArtRage iOS, $ Medium Best oil painting brushes thus No

Pixelmator iOS $ Medium Works with tablets and Macs No

Autodesk iOS, Free Medium Yes

MediBang iOS, Free Medium Cloud storage, can create No

Applications as of early 2019.

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Uma rests her tablet on

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Charging the Tablet

Carrying Your Tablet

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Where Does One Sketch with a Tablet?

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JOSE P. UREÑA You could always sketch at street corners,

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With the advent of tablet drawing, I am able to take the entire

Lay of the Land

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App Terminology Primer

Procreate Brush + Blend

Adjustments Freehand Selection Smudge Erase

Undo and Redo

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Brush Library Brush Library

Painter’s MaxPack InkDup

Tip: The concept of limiting choices is a temporary crutch

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New Drink Set Default

Disc Classic Value Palettes

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ArtRage calls the selected color set Samples at the bottom

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Drawing Everyday Objects L

Tip: In Procreate, the top slider