BETA YOURSELF DIGITAL ART

Smartphones and tablets provide access to a world of artistic expression without turning your home into a paint-spattered shambles. Craig Grannell gives us the broad brush strokes…

THE BASICS Learn your tools

Artists spend years mastering physical tools, and things are no different in digital – so don’t expect to pick up how every brush or app feature works immediately. To begin with, create documents akin to scraps of paper or canvas; then experiment making marks, blending them and seeing how virtual mediums interact, with no overriding goal other than to play.

Don’t overdo it

With powerful digital art packages it’s tempting to revel in special effects and brushes, spraying a variety of textures all around your canvases. If you’re very fortunate, you’ll create a masterpiece. More likely, you’ll make a gaudy and incoherent mess. So exercise restraint, subtly adding effects only where necessary.

Follow the form

If you’re new to drawing, take time to study forms, how they work in three dimensions, and how light falls on them. Classes in figure drawing can help, but if they don’t appeal, at least invest in some books. And don’t be afraid to utilise whatever assistance your app provides, from reference layers to perspective grids.

Save breakpoints

Being able to undo is a big advantage of digital. Slap a massive mark across a real-world canvas and you might live to regret it; in an app, a single gesture fixes any error. But don’t overthink and second-guess yourself all the time or you’ll never progress. Instead, frequently save copies and you can always revert to one of them.

Go big or go home

Most art apps create raster images – that is, made of dots rather than lines. Ideally, then, work on the largest digital canvas you can. This will allow you to zoom in and add detail, rather than facing a pixellated mess, and print your work out in pin-sharp fashion.

BE CREATIVE Brush up

Procreate (£9.99) is the best digital art app for ipad. Open the Brush Library and you can choose from a wide selection of tools; tap ‘+’ and you can import Photoshop brushes or build your own.

Wear a mask

The Adjustments menu has effects to paint on your art… but they’re destructive. Instead, open the Layers panel, swipe across your layer, select Duplicate, tap the new layer and choose Mask. Apply an effect to the original and paint on the mask layer to reveal it.

BE CONCEPTUAL Grab your bits

Because the free Android/ios app Concepts uses vectors, any individual mark always remains editable in isolation. Tap-hold the screen and then drag across one or more marks; the selection can then subsequently be transformed or moved.

Make it snappy

Although you can create freeform drawings in Concepts, vectors are well suited to more geometric and technical forms of art. Explore snap options to snap, align or auto-complete your markings to a grid while drawing.

BE SKETCHY Get some perspective

Sketchbook is a sketching freebie for Android and IOS that’s rich in features. When drawing scenes you can use perspective guides, which offer customisable alternatives with optional snapping.

Prod the hotspots

The right-most toolbar button activates full-screen mode for a distraction-free canvas. In the app’s preferences, define double-tap corner shortcuts for instantly accessing commands like ‘Last brush’ and ‘Clear layer’.

Don’t turn around

Automatic display rotation is often useful… but not when you want to rotate the canvas to utilise your arm’s natural swing when drawing curves. And that’s why you can disable screen rotation in the app’s preferences.

BE FLIPPANT Slow down

Want to make your drawings move? Flipaclip, for Android and IOS, is a good place to begin. Even the free incarnation has much to offer; but when you’re starting out, go to Project Settings and drop the framerate to better see what’s going on.

Throw some shapes

Tap the ruler button in the toolbar and you gain access to a line, circle or rectangle tool. Each can be moved and resized, making it a cinch when you want to add regular shapes to your frames, rather than wobbly lines.