Artist Journal: Forcing Digital To Be What It Isn’t

24 Aug

I keep expecting it to come out a certain way, and it doesn’t

I have a love-hate relationship with digital. I love certain aspects of it, especially for sketching. I like how easy it is to adjust and refine ideas. To move things around without starting over. Even digital inking is something I enjoy more than I used to. I’ve found my flow with it now.

It’s the colouring and rendering of illustrations that I still have resistance with. I keep expecting it to come out a certain way, and it doesn’t. I wonder if it’s me wanting to force digital to act and look like watercolours. If I should consider finding a way I like digital to look, rather than forcing it to be something it isn’t. To let go of the expectations instead. Let it be free, and let me be free to find a way I enjoy working with it. Even if the result is different to my traditional line and colour illustrations with watercolour.

There are people who make “digital watercolour” paintings to good effect, but it isn’t something I enjoy forcing out of digital. It never feels right to me, no matter how I try to do it. The process feels forced and unintuitive to me, and the result still doesn’t feel right to me.

Different frames of mind when painting

Now that I’m writing, something comes to mind. If I’m honest with myself. Actually honest. I don’t view digital as a transparent light-to-dark medium when I create. I’m in a similar headspace as when I paint in gouache or oils, thinking more in terms of opaque mediums and painting dark-to-light. Digital at least has the added benefit of being able to paint in such a way while still having the line-art over the top.

I don’t quite know why my head views digital this way, but now that I think about it perhaps it’s something for me to explore about myself and find out.

There is bound to be frustration and failure to develop skill and success. I’ve long since grown to appreciate that. The balancing act now is figuring out what is frustration from failure that just needs skill-building, and what is frustration from something that isn’t for me. Either one shows me where to go next, but knowing which one to do sometimes requires me to sit down and have a brain dump like this.

End ramble, back to creating.