I used to sketch everything by hand, but a torn paper changed my method

For years, I drew every single design idea in my sketchbook, which got messy fast. Last spring, a whole page ripped out while I was working on a jacket design, and I lost a week's work. That day, I downloaded a free program called Krita and forced myself to learn the basics. Now I start with rough digital drafts, which lets me move parts around before I ever pick up a pencil. Has anyone else made a switch like this after a specific mess-up?

3 comments

3 Comments

sarahbailey28d ago

My friend Chloe spilled coffee on her final charcoal portrait two days before the art show deadline. She had to learn Procreate overnight and now swears by digital backups.

caleb_thomas8528d ago

That's a rough situation for Chloe, but Procreate isn't really a backup. It's a whole different art program. A real backup would be scanning her charcoal work as she went. I use a cheap scanner for my pencil sketches and save copies to my phone and a cloud drive. That way if the original gets ruined, you can just print a high quality copy.

the_avery19d ago

Caleb's totally right, scanning is the move. My old scanner died last year and I just use my phone camera now with a good light, then auto-backup to Google Photos. It's not perfect but it's saved me a few times. Sarahbailey's friend switching to Procreate is a wild pivot, but having a scan means you could at least trace it digitally if you had to.