Question

I’ve just bought an iPad. Can you recommend any painting tools for live sketching sessions? Phillipp Aachen, Germany

Answer Lorena replies

Recently, I’ve got into the habit of taking my iPad to live drawing sessions and museums a lot. I’ve found Procreate to be a great tool for sketching, from quick gesture drawings to more detailed studies.

There are different ways to approach sketching digitally, just like with pen and paper. It takes some time getting used to all of the app’s settings and brushes, but once you get the hang of them, the process becomes very easy.

I like to use the Pencil brushes, especially for gesture drawings. When tilting your pen you’ll be able to draw as if you were using the flat side of a pencil. This is great for generating the first couple of marks, just to get down the flow of the figure. These gesture studies usually only last between one and three minutes.

When the poses last longer you can go for a full colour drawing. This is easily achieved by using a soft Fuzzy brush to blend in the colours and not getting caught up in details early on. If you’re not comfortable working directly with colour just produce a simple line sketch first.

I blend colours with a Soft brush and work from big to small, before add ambient occlusion and detail. The very last thing I do is clean things up with the Eraser and a Hard round brush. For the hair I keep or add soft edges.