After a long time I’ve finally created a new digital painting. This one was done using Sketchbook on my iPad with Apple Pencil. I initially started with the tree and then expanded the countryside around it, purely from imagination. No references used.
Painted digitally using Sketchbook on my iPad.
This was done on my iPad with Sketchbook. This time I took a break from traditional watercolour and decided to go with digital painting. Sketchbook has decent watercolour brushes which somewhat emulate the medium. This was a simple piece just to get comfortable with these brushes and I feel reasonably happy with it. While Adobe Fresco has some good live brushes to emulate real watercolour flow on paper, it tended to crash on my iPad. So I went back to Sketchbook which is snappy and lightweight compared to Fresco.
Overall I would love to see Krita available on the iPad. Sadly I don’t think there will be a port available in the foreseeable future thanks to Apple’s licensing policy with regard to GNU GPL.
This time I wanted to paint something atmospheric and from imagination. Done with Krita using the RGBA brushes on my XP-Pen Artist 10s as usual.
For this piece, I went with my imagination and had a lot of fun doing the damaged road. On many Indian roads damaged sections are sometimes marked with a branch of a tree planted into the ground by the locals for motorists to sight and avoid, when there is nothing better like a reflective warning triangle available. Night driving is particularly hard on sections of damaged highways with no streetlights and on-coming vehicles, especially heavy vehicles, using powerful high-beam headlamps.
My latest painting in Krita, using the WaterC brushes.
Again, an attempt using the WaterC brushes. I think my style tends more towards acrylic painting than loose and transparent water colours. Like many of my previous paintings, this one is also referred from one of my photos. I don’t know whether I will continue with this brush set in the future, since I like the RGBA impasto brushes better (they have great texture and character). But for now I am reasonably happy with the result of this one.
Another landscape, painted using the WaterC brushes in Krita this time.
Like many of my landscapes, this one too is based off one of my photos. The boat in the lake and the man watching from the foreground are my own additions. I am trying to do improvisations like this to develop my skills further. Though I am not totally happy with the level of emulation of watercolour in this attempt I like the brushes enough to try a few more in the future. Now, if only they weren’t so laggy on my laptop…
Another landscape/scenery, based on another one of my photos. I really enjoyed doing this one, and I am reasonably happy with it, though I wanted to enhance the lighting/mood a bit more.
Again, painted using the RGBA Impasto brushes. The inspiration for this comes from this photo of mine. Obviously I have made a few improvisations to it.
The location is of historical interest and has a personal connection. This building is located in the same compound as “Sribagh” which is a larger bungalow built by one of my illustrious ancestors. The property was later bought by the owner of Amrutanjan, Kashinathuni Nageshwara Rao and is a prime piece of real estate in Mylapore, Chennai. It was also the place where the Sribagh Pact was entered into.
Another landscape using the awesome RGBA brushes in Krita 5 beta 2.
This one is inspired from one of my photographs. I have got a bit more comfortable with the RGBA impasto brushes and I improvised a bit from the reference photograph (one of my own photos) by making the road a bit more broken and interesting than it actually was. Part of learning landscape painting is understanding where to deviate from the reference image to make it more interesting and I still feel like a newbie at this. In any case I am quite happy with the result.
Yet another landscape, painted using Krita 5 beta 2 RGBA impasto brushes. I am enjoying the impasto brushes in Krita.
This is a landscape painted using the RGBA impasto brushes in Krita. I am really enjoying these brushes, as they give a genuine oil knife painting effect to digital art. Mimicking real media using digital painting is very cool.
This scene is composed from my imagination, but I used references for the chalet as well as the dead tree.
A painting using Krita’s new RGBA Impasto brush. This one was an experimental painting using a single brush and not sure whether it works or not, but I am glad to experiment like this once in a while.
As said before, I am trying Krita 5 beta 2 and it has some cool new brushes. This painting was done using the RGBA Impasto brush. I am not sure whether I achieved the effect I wanted1. However experimenting with different brushes is an interesting exercise.
Landscapes are always challenging and I’ve been trying a few lately, as a break from the usual portraits. My point in digital painting is to mimic real media as much as possible or at least keep my creations “painterly”. To that end, Krita 5 has made it easier.
A painting of Kolavai Lake, Chengalpattu, using Krita with my XP-Pen Artist 10s.
Yet another landscape painting in Krita. I downloaded Krita 5 beta 2 to try out some of its new features. Though I tried the new brushes (RGBA brushes and the water colour brushes) I found the strokes to be extremely laggy on my laptop to the extent that I couldn’t create a painting with them. Maybe in future, when I get a more powerful laptop, I might use these brushes. For now, this painting is created using the default “Paint” set brushes.
Kolavai lake is a lake near Chengalpattu in Tamil Nadu and is a beautiful location. It is a major source of water for the nearby districts and is an ecologically sensitive area. I had already painted this beautiful lake a long time ago.