Here is the first drill of the Traditional Drawing course on Visual Measuring. The plan is to complete the exercises in order during work breaks and free evenings: at the same time my life drawing class at the MAC will be continuing on Saturdays. As someone trying to move from the world of drawing into ‘painting’, this was helpful to me! So I’ll be following it from the beginning, looking at completing the first three ‘modules’ on the site, which look like this:ĭigital Painting 101 is short and sweet to complete (and I found it readily adaptable to CLIP/Manga Studio rather than Photoshop, though I’m not sure if this will work later in the course), but already introduced me to some ideas and exercises for engaging specifically with digital painting, including picking and mixing colours and managing layers. But as Matt says in his introductory videos, its incredibly easy to think you ‘know’ something, when in fact you could benefit from revisiting a concept or firming up on a skill.

The course begins with foundational art skills and theory – a lot of things which I have already done or do know, though not through a formal training programme. It looks like a fantastic course to follow to build up your skills in a directed and analytical way, so I’ve decided that I’m going to follow it through.

Accompanying the podcast were Chris and Noah’s recommendations for online courses, and this brought me to CTRL-Paint, which offers all of its introductory material entirely free.Ĭreated by freelance artist Matt Kohr, CTRL-Paint begins with a basics introduction to digital painting, and goes back to basics with foundational art skills and building through these toward specific skills in digital rendering and design. One of Chris’ podcasts included an interview with Noah Bradley focusing on the value of online art education compared to University courses (most specifically in the American context, where there is a high level of debt attached to all higher education courses). One of the sites I’ve found particularly interesting is the ‘Oatley Academy’ by former Disney artist Chris Oatley. As I’ve been looking for ways to plan an approach to improving my art skills generally, and digital art techniques in particular, I’ve been checking out a number of online schools and the artists who have set themselves up as instructors online.

Ctrl paint demo