by Martha Jane Bradford
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Digital Drawings Are Original, Hand-made Art
One of the biggest challenges faced by an artist who does digital drawing is the fact that many
people cannot believe that the medium exists; they persist in thinking that the work is a
reproduction of some sort. It important to broadcast the message that, not only can you draw
on the computer, but what you produce is original, hand-made art. There are many digital images,
often called Giclées, on the market that are created by photographic scan of a piece of art
completed in another medium, such as painting or pastel. Even though these images are produced
as limited editions and signed by the artist, they remain reproductions, not original prints, because
the originals were done in a different medium.

With a digital drawing, the art is created in the same medium that is used to print it. It starts out
as a digital file, and in the end that same digital file drives the printer (an Iris inkjet in my case).
So the drawing is an original, not a reproduction. If it is editioned, the drawing becomes an
original multiple, ie., a fine art print, signed and numbered by the artist. To make an analogy
with a traditional print medium, the digital file is to the Iris print as the crayon drawing on a
litho stone is to the lithograph.

The Computer as a Creative Tool
The computer is the most powerful creative tool an artist can possess, and it is well on its way
to revolutionizing the making of visual art just as word processors have transformed the way
most of us write. Unique among all the various ways of creating art with pixels, digital drawing
expands the definition of computer art to include work of the size, look, and level of detail of
traditional media. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. In the upper left is a charcoal drawing I did in 1982; in the lower right
corner is a digital drawing done 20 years later. Up close or at a distance, it is very
hard to tell which one is analog and which one is digital.

The reasons to draw on a computer are many, the foremost being that it dramatically expands
creative freedom. First, thanks to “Layers” (see Favorite Features below), the basic mechanics of drawing
can become much more inventive. Second, the fact that multiple versions of a drawing can be saved greatly
encourages risk-free experimentation. Third, not only can an image can have many variations (black and
white, colored, negative, larger, smaller, etc.), but parts of one image can be copied into another image,
either as a time-saver or in order to create mysterious surreal effects. In addition to the creative pluses,
drawing on the computer enables the artist to combine the look of unique work with the advantages of
multiple copies. The artist can keep portfolio copy of each piece for artistic reference, shows, and promotion
and at the same time reach the wider audiences enjoyed by printmakers. Being able to produce an image
in several different sizes also helps in adapting to the marketplace. Last but not least, there is no dirt, no
toxic fumes, no heavy-lifting. And studio clean-up is accomplished with a tap of the stylus.

Favorite Features
• Undo
At the top of my list of favorite features is “Undo.” Weak pencil strokes and other
miscalculations can be instantly removed from the image without altering any of the rest of it. In
addition to correcting mistakes, toggling back and forth between “Undo” and “Redo” is a great
way to test out ideas.

• Layers
My next favorite is “Layers,” which are analogous to drawing on stacked transparent sheets.
Sky can go on one layer; trees on another; grass on a third; and if the trees need to be redrawn,
the revisions can be made without affecting the sky or the grass. Final nuances of shading can
also be separated onto their own layer, which facilitates a loose and spontaneous beginning
while preserving as much precise control as is needed at the end. When the drawing is
finished, the layers collapse seamlessly into one image.

• Multiple Paper Textures, Infinite Brushes
Being able to combine multiple paper textures in one drawing to suggest various types of
surfaces is also a huge plus, as is the infinite number of brush sizes and shapes. Using 800
pixel charcoal is comparable to roughing-in with a janitor’s broom; push the slider the other way
and suddenly the same charcoal pencil is as sharp and fine as an etching needle; squeeze it
and you have a calligraphy tool. (See Figure 2.)

• Tracing Paper
Last but not least on my short list is the tracing paper feature. With the drawing on the screen
and the reference photograph or sketch either side-by-side or minimized out of view, the tracing
paper button shows or hides the reference imagery as if it were on a light box under the
drawing. For artists who work with reference photographs, this means that a lot of laborious
cartooning can be by-passed. (See Figure 3.)


The Hardware
The manipulation of large digital files requires a reliable platform. After several years of trial and
error, the best solution resulted from using a Pentium III (dual 1GHz Pentium III) computer
originally designed to be a “server”. It runs under Windows 2000 and allows the latest versions
of both Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop to co-exist without choking on 100+ Mb files with all
their add-on masks and layers that vary widely throughout the course of producing complex
drawings in 24-bit color.

Figure 2. This picture shows the marks the charcoal brush makes on
Synthetic Superfine Paper at various sizes and also the calligraphic look
of a squeezed rather than round tip.

Figure 3. In the left window is a section of the reference photograph.
The right window shows the corresponding section of the drawing with
tracing paper feature turned on. (See Figure 5 for the same view with the
tracing paper turned off.)

Figure 4. In the foreground is my Wacom tablet and stylus.

The key here is memory: 4 Gb of RAM (ECC) are needed along with fast (SCSI) drives.
I use three 17.5 Gb and one 80 Gb Seagates (10,000 rpm).
A high-end video board is also recommended, preferably one with dual monitor
capability (from ATI or Matrox), that can handle 21-inch monitors at 1280 x 1024 or
higher pixel resolution.

Drawing input is accomplished via a Wacom Intuos 9” x 12” tablet and stylus. (See
Figure 4.) Output, for proofing purposes only, is to an Epson 820 (6-head ink jet) photo
printer. In order to assure that working proofs from your desktop printer are the same as the
image as it appears on the monitor, the best approach is to set the default color space
for both Painter and Photoshop, including printer output, to the Adobe RGB (1998)
standard, and to then calibrate the monitor accordingly using Pantone’s ® ColorVision TM
Spyder TM monitor profiler.

The Software
The best software on the market for doing digital drawing is Corel ® Painter 7 TM because of its
Natural-Media ® simulation.
• Natural-Media means that the combination of brush and paper texture are pressuresensitive,
so that a hard stroke is not only darker but pushes deeper into the paper
grain while a light stroke skims the surface just as in analog drawing.
• Other drawing programs just produce lighter or darker strokes of identical patterns, which do
not look as convincing. Although Painter has decent photo-editing capabilities, Adobe Photoshop ®
is the premier piece of software for working on reference photographs.

About the Author
I do realist landscapes. I specialize in digital drawings and use my own 35 mm slides or digital
photographs for reference in their creation. The information below will reflect this bias, but I
hope people who work abstractly or expressionistically or from life, the figure, or imagination will
see how my methods can be adapted to their style. Although I will only cover digital black-andwhite
drawings, please be aware that the software can produce the look of any two-dimensional
medium, from pastel to paint, watercolor to woodcut, and all in one image if desired.

Copyright © 2002 Martha Jane Bradford. All rights reserved. For more information, see www.marthavista.com.