explorations

Introduction

For the explorations project we were challenged to explore a passion of ours in a way that allows us to improve upon a specific skillset, falling under the category of 21st Century Skills. Ever since discovering digital art for the first time during lockdown, a whole new set of artistic doors has been opened for me. It has inspired me to create art like nothing else has. The amount of tools that I can have available at my fingertips through a single application is mind blowing. I love playing around with different brushes, tools, effects and more in my free time. However, there are certain digital art skills that I have always stayed away from exploring, out of fear and a lack of artistic knowledge. This has included creating realistic textures such as fur, drawing fire, recreating oil pastel art, recreating watercolor, and drawing elements of water.

In this project, I wanted to further my knowledge of one of these complex art skills using the digital art program called Procreate. I considered several options, but ultimately decided to combine the last two into a project on exploring water in digital art. I set out to draw some realistic elements of water as well as recreate watercolor paintings. I will definitely be able to use this skill in future creations. This specific skill falls under the 21st century skill of Creativity.

Inspiration

Before I even began to approach this process, I looked at inspiration photos to better visualise what I was trying to achieve. I looked for the recreation of a watercolor effect as well as certain elements which involved realistic water.

Process

I started this project by attempting to drawing a waterfall. I used a variety of different brushes and tutorials to try and create a realistic waterfall. Layering a variety of white brushes with different textures and strokes allowed me create the illusion that the waterfall is falling forward. I used big, transparent brushes to create the misty effect.

However, I was only able to discover and implement this after several failed attempts. Here is my first attempt that I was not satisfied with and continued to improve upon.

In the end, this was my favorite waterfall. Here is the final product and a time lapse video of my process creating it.

After creating this element of water, I wanted to experiment more with digital watercolor. I created this colorful watercolor cactus using a set of water toned brushes. These brushes varied in opacity as well as shade based on on pressure, which is what allowed for my recreation of watercolor. Therefore, the colors are just tints, tones, and shades of my selected green and pink.  Variance in tints, tones, and shades is very important in recreating watercolor because in physical art colors become darker or lighter depending on how much water is mixed with the paint.

Here is the final product and a time lapse video of the process.

I really enjoyed this process and continued to experiment with brushes and tutorials that allowed me to achieve a watercolor feel, digitally. I used many of the same tools but took a slightly different approach to create this watercolor flower & bumblebee. For this illustration, I filled all of the primary shapes in with solid, flat colors before going in with the water toned brushes in my desired colors. I also used brushes with unique strokes to further add texture to my piece.

Here is the final product with a time lapse video of the process.

Overcoming Obstacles

Overall, this project evolved quite a bit as a result of initial failures as well as challenges faced while creating.

I began this process by watching several tutorials on how to draw elements of water such as water droplets, waterfalls, and more. My original plan was to draw a stained glass window full of realistic water droplets. I attempted to draw the individual water droplets, as you can see here, but was really struggling with perfecting the shadows and highlights and they were not looking realistic. I had hoped that putting them in context would help, but I was still not satisfied and abandoned the water droplets idea, instead going on to the waterfall.

In addition to that, while creating the waterfall and digital watercolor paintings I struggled to achieve my desired colors while using the pressure sensitive brushes, figuring out an ideal combination of strokes and brushes for the waterfall, and adjusting the brushes effectively (in terms of size, opacity, etc.).

Reflection

This project has taught me several ways to approach creating a water effect in digital art. While I am proud of the final products, I am even more proud of the skills I have been able to learn along the way of creating them. These skills are something I will be able to use for the rest of my life to improve illustrations and make them more realistic. Although it was intimidating at first, I valued having so much creative freedom with this project. It has inspired me to further explore my passions and continue to teach myself new skill sets, through this.