Traditional Vs Digital

Memory. A final for an editorial publication on Alzheimer's Disease. Used ink pen on top of a ripped up poem, finished digitally.

Peter And The Wolf. Duck character study. Mono print texture manipulated digitally to fill the space of my hand drawn oboe-duck character from the famous Peter and the Wolf musical piece.

I have always preferred working with paint. Acrylic, Oil, Ink, Guache or watercolour; I just loved the messy freedom and happy accidents that create a 100% unique and personal finish. Something raw and natural as if you can't really control what is going to happen in the finished painting, no matter how hard you envisage it. I remember the first time I ever used a drawing tablet in a life drawing class at college. I was so skeptical and stuck my nose up at it, feeling like it was going be MS Paint smiley faces and stick figures. Oh, how I was wrong. It was a complete revaluation for me, and ever since I have been in love with digital media.

Time composition. A purely digital drawing using my tablet, a piece that took me hours and hours to complete.

I own two drawing tablets now, and use them in most of my pieces whether that is obvious or not. My jellybeanj pieces are obviously done digitally, but my traditional pieces are always cleaned up with my tablet. There is a bigger sense of control when working digitally and I think this gives me more freedom to explore and experiment - whether thats while i'm messing around with paints, knowing that i can clean up any mistakes that i don't like (and keeping the happy accidents that are happening more often) or being able to play with the final piece once it is scanned in, distorting it or

changing the colours.

Throughout University, I experimented with combining the two medias. The only problem I have with Digital drawing is the flatness of the image. I miss the texture and roughness of a traditionally rendered painting. So I scan in anything i can get my hands onto; old wallpaper, pencil rubbings, mono prints or ripped up sketchbook pages, and use them to give my images a bit of life.

The more I played with digital techniques, the more confident I became and the better my images. I even began to experiment with Gifs (but soon decided it wasn't my cup of tea).

Tower Crane Driver Gif. This tiny 3 second Gif took days to complete.

However, I always find if I work purely digitally, I begin to itch to want to pick up a paintbrush and get messy. I will always experiment with materials and mediums in my work as things are always advancing and changing. But at the end of the day, you cant beat good old water colour.