Experimental Digital Art Part 1 (Trying Out Abstract Digital Art)

Most of my art experience has been traditional. From acrylic paints to charcoal, as long as it was a canvas or paper it was my element. I mostly stuck to traditional art but sometimes I dabbled in digital art before but it was never anything serious. Occasionally I would see my sister drawing with her tablet and I would annoy her enough to where she would let me draw a little. Sometimes she would encourage me to borrow her tablet for a while. Whenever I borrowed the tablet I would get into a call with my online friends and we would all draw together.

However it was never anything very serious on my end, since I never even considered the digital art medium. All of this changed since my sister gifted me a drawing tablet so I can start experimenting with digital art. And boy- did that gift open up a portal to a whole new world.

Then I decided to try another style. I used a photo I took as a reference and started digitally painting and although being very fun I missed the looser style of the more abstract art. I find this to be a general trend of the things I like. I tend to prefer art with less rules (unless if it involves color theory). The way I use art is to express how I feel; sometimes it looks good and other times it looks very questionable.

I will admit at first it was very foreign. I could not feel the “paper” instead all I could feel was the smooth plastic tablet. The features were completely new to me and the tablet pen had a weird grip. It felt like I was discovering a whole new world. I spoke with a few of my artist friends about different drawing programs to use and eventually settled on one called “Clip Studio Paint”. After downloading this program; this is where the real experimentation began.

I felt like a child who was discovering something completely new. I tested out all the brushes I could think of, messed around with the settings and opacity. It was a like a fun new toy with different challenges.

One of my favorite things to do was to “paint”. I found a brush I liked and tweaked the settings. This was a very convenient feature of digital art. I can change the canvas, the brush -anything- with the click of a button. My art felt a little childish; it was just splashing paint on canvas and hoping for the best.

Overall I find digital art to be fun and convenient even though I still prefer the feel of traditional tools. I like how digital art brings me closer to my friends and how versatile and flexible it is. Even if looking at a screen for several hours can be a little straining (but it isn’t like I wouldn’t be looking at some sort of screen anyway).