I Paint Digital Drawings That Look Like Hand Painted Images

As a digital artist, I like to make my art stand out by incorporating techniques that give my art the appearance that it was done by hand. I have been told by others that digital art can feel life less, with little reflection of the artist's "hand." I have felt the same way looking back at digital art I have completed in the past, so I intentionally sought out techniques that would keep my digital art full of life and color; thus making it whimsical, fun, and most of all, distinguishable.

It throws people off to learn that a lot of my paintings are digital. In fact, at a recent art show I participated in, my canvas prints confused people to the point of shock. People viewing my art couldn't believe the art wasn't hand painted. Some people asked if they could feel the canvas just to make sure.

Although I paint digitally, I still explore other mediums and have recently taken up acrylic painting by hand. While a hand painting takes me several days to complete, I can finish a digital painting in just a couple of hours. I have incorporated many techniques to get my digital art just the way I like it and am learning new techniques all the time. A lot of the techniques I use involve adding textures to multiple layers of artwork and giving the layers effects and styles. The experimentation I have done in digital art has actually helped me with my hand painting.

Here is a handful of some of the digital work that I have completed over the last couple of years.

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This was the first drawing I completed a few years ago when I first began my digital art exploration. A friend approached me and asked me to do some pro bono work for Shasta County WIC. They needed some art for the cover of their post cards. I felt inspired at the time to create the image digitally. I took care in giving the drawing a hand painted feel because WIC was looking for something that would add a breath of life to their post cards. By completing that simple act of kindness, I discovered this unique and whimsical style that opened a whole new world for me.

This was the second drawing I completed in this style. This was also a part of the WIC post card project.

The more digital drawing I got into, the more I explored color in skin tones. If you look closely at my drawings, you can see hues of different colors.

I have found that I love to accentuate the colors of skin tones, which to me draws out the diversity of the characters in my drawings.

I like to give all of my art a whimsical, hand painted feel. This one I paid particular attention to the hair, which is snake like and coiled.

My art is inspired by spirituality, fairy tales, and mythology.

I like giving all of my pieces a little bit of character. The character is what makes my digital art distinguishable. I scan my pencil drawings and leave in traces of the original sketch underneath the color and texture.

I have found I love creating deep and rich colorful environments, with a special attention to telling a story.

Speaking of stories, this drawing was actually inspired by a story I am writing. To get the rich textures and details in my art, I combine techniques of adding in multiple textures, from papers to stones and water color splashes.

If you look closely, you can see the canvas texture I added to this piece.

I use Photoshop to do all of my digital painting. I even have a Wacom tablet that I use to emulate the feeling of hand drawing. My favorite brush to use is the charcoal brush.

Fairy tales have inspired me since I was a little girl. I love drawing scenes from the stories in my imagination. As a writer, I sometimes get frustrated with all of the stories in my head and drawing out scenes and characters helps me to make those stories come to life.