Table of Contents
Going Digital
Given I gave up on Analog coloring and drawing due to health and living space needs, I figured it was time to really commit to figuring out digital for coloring and drawing. Note I intentionally avoided making desktop or laptop computers a requirement for my setup. I want to have this whenever/wherever in it’s simplest form.
After some research into digital coloring and drawing I nearly walked away completely. Digital is a messy land of choices. Much like Analog there are a ton of options and you can go wrong, you can go right and everywhere in between.
Unlike Analog, there is no ’the humble pencil and paper’ to fall back upon if you get overwhelmed. Thankfully I’m a stubborn human at times and found a good blend of options that get close to pencil/paper for simplicity and utility.
What
The below will outline what I’ve managed to put togther for myself that works well, gets out of my way (read: simple) and works with my finger or a ‘real stylus’. Basically the equivalent of pencil/paper that can get fancy if you desire. However, much like pencil/paper you don’t need to dive deep to succeed.
The intent here isn’t to become an artist using an iDevice living the Coffee Shop Life. It’s to make coloring and drawing like Zentangle easy and more accessible. Ideally in a way that scales to match the moments desires.
Requirements
The only hard requirement for this setup is Sketchbook or Krita from your preferred app store. They are available on iOS and Android for both phones and tablets.
These apps were the key to unlocking digital art for me. I use both apps heavily. I use Sketchbook for ‘quick work’ like Zentangle, sketches and doodles. I use Krita for more complex work like Dot to Dot, coloring and drawing.
I won’t be detailing my specific setups. I have very specific setups that work for my brain. I strongly recommend adjusting app configs and smoothing over any rough edges you run into as you use the apps. Configuration of drawing apps is highly individual. Both Sketchbook and Krita have reasonable defaults and plenty of information and examples available already. Just keep in mind there is no ‘wrong way’, just ways that don’t work for you.
Stylus
A stylus is a nice to have for this setup. I myself use an active stylus with a folding phone as my main hardware. I also use an Adonit Dash with my non folding phone when I don’t have my folding phone handy. Note a stylus is not a requirement but can make/break the feel of the setup for some.
There are basically 3 options here:
Device
- Common Options: Apple Pencil / Surface Pen / S-Pen
- Pros
- Best precision of the stylus options
- Allows for finger/palm rejection to be setup in some apps
- Cons
- Requires device support
- Usually battery powered and require charging
Active
- Common Option: Adonit Dash
- Pros
- More precise than standard stylus
- Does not require device support
- Cons
- Battery powered and requires charging
- Less precise than device stylus
Standard
- Common Options: Adonit Jot / Adonit Mini / Rubber nub stylus
- Pros
- More precise than finger
- Does not require device support
- No battery
- Cons
- Less precise than active stylus
- May be harder to see where you’re coloring/drawing
In My Opinion…
Each stylus has its own pros and cons. I myself prefer the device stylus option over others but use an Adonit Dash if no device stylus is avilable.
Each option is valid and can make a big difference for how coloring and drawing using a digital device feels. I definitely couldn’t use my finger as the primary way to color a picture. I need a bit more ’traditional’ feel but others I know prefer their finger.
General Information
Pan/Zoom/Rotate
In general I make heavy use of pan, zoom and rotate. I can use two fingers for moving around my focus easily and fluidly without putting down my stylus. It took a little practice but made a big difference for me.
Color Palate
For choosing a color palate I generally use Coolors to generate a random color palate. I highly recommend this site if you don’t want to build your own set of colors.
One trick with the site that I found really interesting: there is a little lock on each color shown on the generator output page. If you select the lock it’ll lock the color so you can generate another palatte with that color as included. You can do this multiple times. Can be helpful for quickly finding complimentary colors to one that stands about above others.
I normally stick to a maximum of 5 colors for my images but that’s a personal preference. This is art: let the mood strike.
I’ve also saved some of my favorite options from Coolors as Krita palettes for re-use in multiple images.
In addition to Coolors I setup the below, additional color palettes.
- Sketchbook
- Krita
Brushes
I personally prefer charcoal and pencil brushes in general. However, I have setup some custom brushes like ‘ballpoint pen’ that I use on occassion. There are a lot of options out there and there is no ‘wrong brush’, just the one(s) you prefer to use.
The custom brushes I use the most are below.
- Sketchbook
- Krita
Layers
I normally have at least 2 layers, if not more. I try to keep the background separate from my actual work.
In the case of sketches and square Zentangle, I have only 2 layers: my drawing work and background. If I’m creating a circular Zentangle I also have a layer that ‘blacks out the corners’ of the image to create a circle.
In the case of Dot to Dot and Coloring work, I have 4 or 5 layers:
- Tracing layer (only for Dot to Dot) where I trace the dots
- Imported ‘Page’ which is the dot to dot or coloring page I’ve imported to work on
- Coloring layer where I do my coloring work
- Palette layer where I keep a copy of the color palette I’m using and any notes about which brushes I’m using.
- Background which is a simple, un-touched background layer
For other, ’non quick’ work I setup 3 layers to start and add more as needed:
- Working layer where I do my work, I break this up into multiple layers as needed
- Palette layer where I keep a copy of the color palette I’m using and any notes about which brushes I’m using.
- Background which is a simple, un-touched background layer
Managing Digital Art
One problem I had with digital art is I lost my analog sketch book and comp book setups. I used notebooks to track metadata and notes related to art I was working on. I ended up creating a highly custom Digital Art Composition Book (link) within Obsidian to help me with this.
The linked comp book is how I track my art and information related to each piece. This allows me to have detailed reference material available while working on my art and has been a huge help for me. There is a full breakdown of how I use the comp book at the above link.
This was one of the most important things I setup that allowed me to engage with digital art like I did analog art.
Zentangle & ‘Small Stuff’ (Sketchbook)
For smaller projects like Zentangle or quick sketches, I use Sketchbook. It drops me into a blank image and I can get to drawing quickly. Perfect when I want to faff about while bored, waiting at the Doctor office and similar. Think ‘pocket notebook full of doodles or Zentangle’ for how I use Sketchbook in practice.
These drawings tend not to get dedicated pages in my art comp book until after they are complete as they aren’t long-running projects. I’ll export the images from Sketchbook as psd and png. After export, I create an appropriate page in my art comp book so I have a full history of my art over time.
Krita is perfectly valid for these use cases but the startup time on Android is just ’too long’ for these quick, mini art sessions for me.
Coloring Pages, Dot to Dot & ‘Complex Stuff’ (Krita)
For larger projects like Coloring, Dot to Dot and non-sketch drawings, I use Krita. It’s got a lot of nice features, a cleaner UI (for me) when it comes to managing the complexities of digital drawing and is open source. The main downside with Krita (for me) is the slower start time, however, I’m willing to trade the slightly slower start time for the ease of use for bigger projects. Especially given I tend to have ‘intent’ when working on a larger project.
When an image is complex enough I find myself switching brushes, colors and generally ‘moving around’ and ’tuning things’ heavily as I work. The overall UI of Krita is just better laid out for how my brain works when working through complex digital art.
These items get entries in my digital art comp book before I open Krita to start working. The complexity of these items is enough where I want a dedicated spot for metadata, reference info and tracking my progress. I pull ‘snapshots’ of my work at various stages and store these snapshots in my digital art comp book. I’ll also store the final image as both png and Krita document format in the art comp book once complete. This gives me a complete history that shows how a piece of art was developed over time which I’ve found helpful.
Sketchbook is perfectly valid for these use cases but my personal needs pushed me to Krita for complex works.
Additional Reading
Beyond the above, I’ve published a lot of information on how I engage with art in the Art Section of this site. I’d recommend taking a look as there is additional information that may be useful for you.
There Is No Wrong Way
I normally have a conclusion on my posts and pages but I think the above stands on its own. However, I’d like too say:
THERE IS NO WRONG WAY TO ART