I have been using Paintshop Pro for many years to straighten out, crop and brighten up my photos. An application like this is a part of taking photos isn’t it?

Many artists I know are Apple people. I am a recovering software developer, so I favour Microsoft (why? they are all big companies). I also buy Android phones.

I became aware that many of my more Apple friends were messing around with Procreate and using it as a drawing and painting device. And honestly it really is impressive. The stylus is a briush or a pencil or a pen, there are layers, you can use scanned in sketches or photos, you can make it look like paint or ink or like something else entirely. So many colours!

Of course all this is available in the Adobe suite (I think). But the cost doesn’t even bear thinking about. Corel was stalling on making their apps react to differential stylus pressure (now fixed, at least for me). And Procreate was so easy, so nicely presented and so seductive. I wanted a go. For me. 

At the end of 2022 I spent quite a lot of money on an IPad, an Apple pencil and some stuff like a case and a laptop sleeve. In order to spend under £10 on a single app. That app had made me an Apple customer. What they call a “gateway” application, like Amazon itself, that once made so many people buy their first ever laptop.

And Procreate is indeed a joy to use. I swiftly went throough the official set of tutorials and then returned to “real” painting on paper. I got tied up in the amazing world of gelli printing for quite a time and that is now most certainly a part of my practice for the forseeable.

Later on in 2023 I started to have a go at various YouTube tutorials. Art with Flo is simply marvellous. I have followed a number of her highly detailed and prescriptive tutorials. Of course I can’t show the results here as they are very much hers.

Playing with Procreate brushes did lead me to make the red haired man portrait here on the left.

Genevieve Design Studio helped me to make use of a source image (mostly my own) to make a new version, in an analagous way to my use of images in my Essaouira series.

This is where I am at this point. At the moment I am fully back in my sketchbook, using gouache to research an acrylic painting project.

I don’t fully know where this will go but I expect it will develop further and become more like a mixed media approach to this tye of art. I am grateful for all help and for this tool. 

In case of doubt, I shall always stay clear of AI art, as I doubt the ethics of such a practice.