I have been a huge fan of the stylus for a long time, having written at least half a dozen posts on them; and when Procreate was launched I was right behind it too. The simple fact is that touch screens and styluses are here to stay and their interconnectivity with your work flow means that a pen and paper, whilst still the most enjoyable way in which to create things, is somewhat limited. There are things you can do on Procreate that would take you half a day of cumbersome activities, including going to the art store and office supplies store twice, just to get a result you can achieve in minutes on these new applications.
I am grateful that not many people have yet picked up on this and that not everyone enjoys drawing, as it has given me a competitive edge for the moment. Sometimes I stop people in the street to show them the benefits and when they switch off half way through I just saunter off and think 'too bad, well, I did try".
Whilst I am myself in no way an artist, I have a keen eye for design and colours and over time I have developed enough skills using my stylus to help my designs along. Take the hand-clippers below for example, my local barber asked me if I could knock him out a logo after he wore one of my limited edition print t-shirts. Sure, I said, give me a couple of days. So I spent the weekend researching line drawings and sure enough I discovered the wonderful works of Pablo Picasso and Keith Haring along with Henri Matisse and so many other artists that I don't have time to mention.
Two inspirational artists that I reference in the style of images I created below are Australian artist Jasper Knight for the hand-clippers and Pablo Picasso on the exotic bird below. Picasso's work was particularly magical as it almost defied reasoning to my mind that a man was able to use his hand to create a single unbroken line to convey something as complex as a galloping horse. Steady hands? Tracing paper? Repetition? I don't know how he did it.
All this of course has been even easier to do now with the new Apple Pencil. No, I am not switching over to Mac - but admittedly, just when I was ready to move across to Samsung for my tablet, they go and invent something as magnificent as the Apple Pencil and set the bar for all others. I feel about Apple how Michael Corleone feels about the mafia.... 'every time I try to get out, they pull me back in'. Hear Jony Ive seduce you with it.
Like I said, I am not an artist, but love art I do, and my respect for people's craft is only bolstered by attempting to mimic their style.
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