I like a bit of challenge, so I’m composing my first movie score. It might be just a two-minute film of frost-covered plants in our back garden, but it’s taken me several hours at the keyboard and computer so far! It was an article in the latest copy of iCreate magazine that got me started; […]
Category Archives: Computer
Mapping Pen Sketches
A mapping pen, as the name suggests, is designed to produce regular lines and the Clip Studio Paint version does a good job of emulating that, but without the danger of twisting and splaying its long, flexible nib, something I had to be careful to avoid when I used the real thing in my student […]
Perspective Ruler
Perspective can be a bit of a struggle but, according to Italian comic artist Pietro B. Zemelo in a recent Clip Studio Paint webinar, ‘you can’t go wrong’ with the perspective ruler. I have gone wrong actually as I didn’t plot my vanishing points in quite the right place when trying it out on my iPad, but […]
Tracing in Adobe Illustrator
I love the printmaking effect that I can get by converting one of my sketches into a vector graphic in Adobe Illustrator CC 2018. I’ve reproduced this image at almost its full screen size (the original sketch is much smaller) because I didn’t want to soften it by reducing it too much. I’ve downloaded the program […]
Wild Yorkshire Facebook Page
I’m learning to use Photoshop CC 2018 so I’ve been trying out a tutorial to redesign the Cover Photo for my Facebook page, so that the Profile Picture is integrated into the design. The photograph of me looking windswept at Sandal Castle was so bright compared with my sketchbook pages that I toned it down with […]
A Lot of Duckweed
I haven’t turned on the hose pipe during this long dry spell but this weekend the pond had got so low that I felt I had to. The surface was entirely covered with duckweed, so I put on my arm-length waterproof gloves and pulled it out around the edges, then used a pond net to […]
Affinity Photo
I’ve been using Photoshop for twenty-two years but I might finally be moving on. In 1996, I bought my first scanner which came with an OEM version of Adobe Photoshop 4.0 included in the box. This was quite a bargain as, at that time, if you wanted to buy the same version of Photoshop on it’s […]
Publishing with Pages
I’ve been trying to get around to publishing an eBook for years but it’s taken a short break in the Lake District and the latest version of Apple’s Pages desktop publishing software to get me started. As you can see from the cover, I’ve been drawing from cafes again; the Lakeside Cafe attached to the theatre […]
A SilverFast Scanning Secret
A technical post: the solution to a scanning problem that has been puzzling me for a while: How do I scan a one inch wide image so that it appears as a one inch wide image in my publication?
iPad Landscape
I’ve taken my iPad Pro on location for the first time and drawn this view over the Calder Valley around Mirfield from the shelter of Charlotte’s Ice Cream Parlour, Whitley. As usual, I used an Apple Pencil and the iPad version of Clip Studio Paint. I started with the Transparent Watercolour brush then used the Uneven Layering Brush for the wet-on-wet blotches […]