If you have ever tried to learn how to draw digitally, it can be a frustrating experience. It does not matter if you already know how to draw on paper or not. For instance, a mouse and a pencil are two very different tools. Drawing with a mouse is like drawing with a hockey puck. Touchpads are a little better as a drawing tool, but they are very small.
For a long time, I have been trying to master how to draw on a computer. It has been a mind bending experience. This is because I have been drawing on Adobe Illustrator. It is a great tool, and it can do a lot of things. You can draw on Adobe Illustrator, but it is not as easy as on paper. Illustrator is great if you want anything that is pixel perfect. I have made many logos, icons, and other digital elements using Illustrator. What has bent my brain is how to get those perfect shapes that you can get so easily with illustrator to look more, well, human-made instead of computer made.
Very recently I have obtained an iPad so that I can learn how to draw using Procreate. If you have never heard of Procreate, it is an iPad drawing platform that makes good use of Apple Pencil’s capabilities. You can also use your fingers to draw with the iPad. Both are much more intuitive tools than a mouse. The drawback is that your drawings are not vectored, so no logos on this app for me!
Even though I have been drawing for most of my life, even the iPad has taken some getting used to. I am using Paperlike screen protectors, which helps. But what has really been getting me out of the awkward stage is using digital coloring books.
Yes, this sounds crazy, but there are a lot of options to download digital coloring books - both free and paid. There is a forum thread on Procreate’s support page just for users to share coloring book pages.
I have been downloading PNGs, opening them on Procreate, making them “transparent” using layer options, then coloring on another layer. By doing this, I have been getting used to the myriad of brush options that Procreate offers. Brushes mimic real-life art tools, such as pastels, ink, paint, and more. I have been learning how the different brushes react, for example, which ones allow you to mix paint on the digital canvas.
This experimentation, or should I say, play, has held me get over the “I am SO BAD at this” stage quickly. For me, framing something as a game has helped me with various struggles and problems. I have been using a form of this process for years in my professional design practice. For example, I see Object-oriented UX and the ORCA process that I use with my clients as solving a puzzle. To tame a system’s complexity, using a puzzle as a mental model helps me start to simplify that complexity.
Awareness and use of mental models can help with solving all kinds of problems. Let me know if you use a similar technique.
