I was recently given a drawing tablet to pursue something I’ve always dreamt of- digital illustration. I had so many questions. Are the programs too expensive? Am I tech savvy enough? Will art lose its therapeutic effect if it’s on a computer? Am I too old to get good at it? I’ve been pleasantly surprised on all these fronts, and I’m officially hooked!
Are the programs too expensive?
The expensive part is the drawing tablet, but there is a large price range for those. I’ve been enchanted with the world of open source software- it’s free! The digital painting program I’m now addicted to is called Krita. It’s just as professional as any paid programs like photoshop or adobe illustrator, and has even more features. This has started me down a rabbit hole of other open-source programs. I’ve found that people in the open source community just have a really good vibe- they’re eager to share information and they usually make their top-notch resources available for free.
Am I tech savvy enough?
The technological aspect is actually really manageable. I’m not particularly computer smart. I feel that computers sense fear and are just generally the worst. However, I haven’t had any major tech problems with krita. I ran into one issue with saving multiple versions of the same image, but that was resolved with an overdue update. The Krita manual online is the most helpful resource I have ever used to learn a program. 99% of my questions were answered through a quick search on their site.
Will digital art still feel like art?
Physical painting and sculpting has always been a therapeutic thing for me. It grounds me to reality, has a calming effect, and gives me space to process. I feared that in digital illustration I would lose all of that. Turns out, mentally it feels a lot like doing it on paper. Those creative and innovative parts of my brain are engaged and make me feel “alive” like I do when I paint on paper. The ability to correct mistakes also has this liberating effect of childlike experimentation.
However, it’s still a computer. Time flies by WAY faster doing art digitally. It also makes me hyper-focus and I can lose touch with my surroundings and my demeanor. To be fair, that already happens with physical art (according to my husband). But those symptoms seem to be magnified doing digital illustration. Finally, I get those dizzy headache feelings when I’ve been on the screen too much, which is an obvious drawback.
Am I too old to get good at it?
When I started looking into digital illustration, it felt like everyone had been doing it forever. I thought that it would be like learning to draw from scratch all over again; and I’m not a very talented artist to begin with. However, it turns out that a lot of it does translate. On krita it feels like a really intuitive process. The pen takes a few hours of getting used to, but there are stabilizer settings to aid that process. I do feel like I still have to find my voice in digital art, but that’s actually kind of exciting!
This beach scene is originally a watercolor, as seen on the left. However, I wasn’t happy with it- so I tried to edit it on krita. My favorite version is the middle one.
A Surprise Bonus
There’s another benefit to learning digital illustration- editing physical art pieces. I’ve discovered that I can paint something physically and then fix mistakes or play around with alternative designs. It’s also possible to marry physical art with digital art for new possibilites.
This is a mother’s day card I made. The painted version is on the left. The one I edited digitally is on the right. A blank pdf printable is available here for free.
Conclusion
As an artist who has moved 7 times in the last 5 years (and is currently planning the next 3 moves), digital illustration is a great resource for my minimalist lifestyle. I’ll never stop doing physical art, but digital illustration has opened a whole new world of possibilities for me with a single piece of equipment.
My Tools
- Krita Painting Program
- Wacom Intuous Pro Drawing Tablet (I’m honestly a little embarassed to share because it’s expensive. But I’m extremely grateful for this gift and I’m 100% confident now that I’ll get more than the money’s worth.)
Expat Crafts and Kitchen 