Digital Sketchbook?

One of the great promises of tablets like the iPad, Microsoft Surface, and others (for artists anyway) has been their use as a digital sketchbooks. And for me at least the ones I've used haven't been as useful as I had thought. For one thing, the interface programs can be daunting to learn quickly. People who sketch with pencil and sketchbook don't have that problem; on the other hand, artistic and expressive use of the pen or pencil has to be learned, too. Nonetheless, it takes time to become comfortable with the tools, both the tablet and the program. 

Over the past couple of years I've worked with an iPad as well as on a Surface, trying to find a tablet and program combination that felt as comfortable as pulling out a pad and pencil. There are a lot of tablet programs out there--Procreate, Sketchbook ArtRage, Photoshop, others--and I've tried all of them. Recently Sketchbook (for desktops) has been my go-to program and so I've tried it on my tablets too. Even though I'm very familiar with the program the tablet interface is a bit different and takes some getting used to. In any event, it's been fun to work with the iPad--the Apple Pencil is excellent--running Sketchbook, a program I know well in its desktop version. 

"Marty," digital study

Recently it finally felt as if my digital sketchbook had arrived. One morning I wanted to do a quick study of a companion and circumstances dictated speed. We were waiting to be called to breakfast and I really only had minutes. I opened my iPad, started Sketchbook and drew subject with Sketchbook set to emulate a relatively coarse, blue-black crayon and a white one. I sketched the basic likeness on the first layer over a blue-gray background, then layered in dark hatching in the next and white accents and hatching in the topmost layer. Mostly I tried to capture shapes, not outlines. Just as I finished the final layer my subject was called to the table. But in this case, my tablet was at last a really usable digital sketchbook.