This drawing is part of the Great Master Series and you can also check out some of the other courses in this series by searching for Paintology. I made this drawing on my Huawei P30 Lite phone, and you can do the drawing on your android phone or even tablet. I would suggest to use a stylus for this drawing but you can also use your own fingers.
This famous painting of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci has captivated audiences throughout the centuries primarily because of the gentle face of the woman sitting in front of a vivid expansive background.
We create this drawing using the Grayscale mode of the paintology app which is ideal for learning about tones since the drawing is in the grayscale. If you are new to Paintology, please make sure to go through the previous section on the short video guides and how to use Paintology. We use the shade brush entirely for this drawing because the shade is an ideal brush for creating the gentle tones that are found on the face of the woman. In addition, the brush is great for creating those creases found on the woman’s thick fabric dress.
As I have mentioned before when you do the actual drawing make sure to follow the process rather than trying to emulate my drawing stroke by stroke. If you are serious about improving your drawing, it is very important that you understand the techniques of drawing and how to take advantage of these methods in your own drawing. As you get better you will find yourself developing your own styles, approach and techniques to produce your paintings and drawing.
I would also like to dismiss a myth that some people may have about drawing in the traditional medium and the digital medium. If you are an artist and is keen to improve in your creative ventures, you know that you need to practice in all types of mediums. For example, you may have practiced with pencil, then you venture to charcoal, pastels and even wet mediums such as watercolor, acrylics etc. All of these mediums can help you with your overall goals of developing improved techniques in painting and drawing. Similarly, the digital drawing medium also falls into this category and it would be a mistake to think that this medium has been designed for another group of people with a technical mindset.
Paintology, unlike some of the other drawing apps, has a certain set of tools and not swamped with so many tools that requires you to brush up on your technical skills before you can do any drawing. The Paintology app allows you to get into the heart of drawing right from the beginning focusing more on helping you develop your drawing skills rather than technical skills. I have only used one brush tool to do this drawing with no opacity setting and just setting the color and brush size. This allows you to focus more on your drawing and expand your overall appreciation of painting and drawing. Having come from a traditional artist background myself, you will most definitely feel comfortable with Paintology and continue to reach your higher creative goals.
Initially, in this drawing you may have the urge to follow me as much as you, which is ok, but it is important that you learn the techniques for doing the drawing in the manner that I draw. My approach comes from having a certain mastery of my tools and being able to manipulate the textures, effects on the canvas to emulate some object, images etc. It is in effect creating the illusion of detail, which you will find many artists talk about in more detail, if you search on youtube.
Note that when I am drawing the fabric and the lights hitting it I'm not focusing on reproducing the exact details as da Vinci made in his painting. I'm simply trying to create the illusion of the creases in the fabric. the background as I see it. The focal point which is the face is one of the most challenging parts of this drawing since there are many subtle shades to a face. If you add color, this increases the complexity of the whole drawing, this is why a grayscale mode of drawing is great for people who are just starting out.
If you have ever done any portrait drawing, you will know that any subtle variations in your drawing of the face can have a profound effect on the overall look of the face. With experience you can get a complete replica of the face providing you observe and understand the minute details that are found in a face with the shadows and highlights.If you want to learn more about portrait drawing you can find many courses that I have posted here in Udemy, just search for Paintology in the search box. In one of my latest portrait drawings, I pushed myself a little further than usual and managed to produce a good liking to my original picture of my daughter. It can be pleasing to see that you are making progress as time goes on.
Drawing should be a fun experience and if you are struggling initially to get into a groove, this may be due to a number of reasons, the complex nature of the drawing, not allowing enough practice with the brush, continuing to improve your strokes, selecting the right colors etc.
I would go through the video a few times to see if this fits within your capabilities, because you don’t want the final drawing to be your deciding factor whether to continue drawing or dropping it altogether.
You should always give yourself plenty of time to learn and practice until you are comfortable with the tools you are using, this applies to traditional drawing as well as digital medium. Once you have attained some mastery of the tools, you can start experimenting more and more and continue to develop your skills through drawing subject matters that interest you more. The initial part of this drawing through the traced mode can help you to refine your drawing strokes, understand form and shape, help you appreciate tones etc. I used it to initially lay down the form and shape ie. the outline which is the foundation for the remainder of the drawing which I do in freestyle while referring to the original image on another device.
If you are very new to drawing, you may want to visit my Quora site where I talk a lot about the ins and outs of drawing. You can also find many posts on these subjects through the Paintology blog site. I provide all of these links in the reference section here. If you are comfortable with drawing, you may have a different approach for example you may decide to do the foreground of the woman first and then tackle the background or you may want to do the background and the woman last, there is no right or wrong way to do this going. In the traditional approach, we have approaches where you may have utilized light tones first and then work your way to darker tones. The digital medium is more forgiving when it comes to developing tones in your drawing since you have more options that are not typically available in the traditional sense. For example, the undo feature of the app allows you to redo sections of the drawing which you couldn’t do easily in the traditional medium.
I hope you found this course to be useful for your journey and discovery with drawing especially in the digital drawing medium. There are many other courses available for drawing with this app, just search for Paintology in Udemy and the links provided in the reference section. I hope you have had some insights into using the app and will continue to bring you more courses, please make any suggestions or recommendations that you might want to see more.
