I recently started doing sketches on an iPad using Procreate and an Apple Pencil. (I got an Apple Pencil (1st Generation) along with an elago Silicone Sleeve which makes holding the pencil much more enjoyable.) I have been staying away from paper sketches in recent years, and I wasn’t sure why. When I did the January 2024 Prints I used a light tracing box along with the Shaper Trace and I did like the process, but I came to realize what I didn’t like about drawing on paper was that I liked using markers but I didn’t like how unforgivable they were. Pencil sketches allow you to erase and redo, and markers… do not.
That said, the tracing on paper part was great, the end result was good, but I really wanted to try an Apple Pencil to see what it could do. Back in 2023 I got the old Wacom tablet working again, but I just didn’t love using it. The whole “draw here but look here” thing is not for me. So I bit the bullet, upgraded my iPad to a 6th Gen (since my old 5th Gen did not work with the Apple Pencil) and somehow I had already purchased Procreate so I got that installed and got started sketching.
My favorite thing is the undo. Yes, it’s so damn simple, but if you draw a line and don’t like it you can just hit undo and be back where you were before you added that line. This is the thing I don’t get when sketching on paper, and drawing digitally offers it, and while you should (sometimes) be definitive in your mark making, I am not always that confident… and that’s fine. Everyone works differently.
I still have a lot to learn, but above you can see one of my first sketches… It’s my bike. A Trek 7200 and Dana got it for my birthday back in 2006. I’m not sure if I’ve drawn a bike since 2011, when I did it from memory.
Anyway, welcome to the start of more sketches… I’ll probably use some of them for relief prints in the future, so fair warning if you start seeing prints that look like sketches and vice versa.
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