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Featured Resident

Dan Ketchum

My experience with using digital art. On a whim, Joanne, my grandson, and I had joined a ‘hands on’
session at the Apple store in the summer of 2019, and we used new iPads and a digital art product
called Adobe Fresco. I enjoyed the experience and eventually bought a refurbished iPadPro. But I
didn't care for Adobe’s subscription pricing, so I bought a product on the App store called Procreate
($9.99 one-time). I think other digital software products have similar features to Procreate. I also
bought an Apple pencil.

At first, I watched dozens of Youtube videos of artists using Procreate on their iPads. I then followed
along step-by-step to learn the functionality of the product and techniques they used. I typically save a photo to my laptop and have it open to
look at it while I draw on my iPad.

Brushes- Procreate contains over 150 ‘brushes’ that one can select to paint or draw on the iPad. The Apple Pencil is pressure and tilt-sensitive,
so that a strong 30 degree stroke will produce a different result than a softer 60 degree one. It comes with three categories of brushes- drawing/
painting, smudging, and deleting.

Colors- I can choose any of the dozens of colors in the Procreate palette and I can switch color and brush at anytime. I can adjust the brush size
and opacity. I can adjust the color opacity using a slider of Red-Green-Blue or type in a hexadecimal number from another source. I can even
import a photo from my library into a canvas. Once I’ve done that, I can use it to guide me with perspective and I can select colors from the
photo and use them in my drawing, even save these colors to my own palettes.

Layers- Probably the most useful feature of Procreate (and other digital art
software) is the concept of layers. I can draw/paint on a layer and then add a
new layer on top of, or underneath, the first layer. I can draw/paint on each lay-
er, and each one is independent of the others. I can select a specific layer, make
changes to it, even delete the entire layer, and this won’t affect any other layers
(great if I don’t like how a cup/saucer or fence has turned out).

February 2021 Page 31