painting on the computer

a Saint is born

I was having fun playing around with Photoshop paintbrushes. Greatest thing is that you can always preserve previous painting stages by putting another layer, which is not possible in real life painting. Once I got a hang of customizing different brushes so that I could pick up a previously used brush it was quite easy provided one has a wacom tablet. When I used to edit photos I was working with a mouse. Now that I have the pen and tablet working with the mouse feels like using a brick to paint. I am not sure if I am hooked on painting with a computer. I love the feel of real paint, the way the colors overlap, the textures, the resistance of the brush while painting.

This sketch I made is for a documentary in India and because it had to be quick and I was going to send it to them via email anyway and because it is for a film so it didn’t matter if it is not a real painting I thought of trying Photoshop. I made a sketch on paper, scanned it in and then experimented with the brushes etc. To make it more easy and faster I just copied some of the people from a photograph I had, layered them underneath the drawing and drew over them in another layer. I thought of incorporating the Sanskrit verse that is telling the story of the picture, how a saint is being born, but I don’t yet have it so I used another one from a beautiful collection of verses, the “Shivastrotravali”, which is very famous in Kashmir. I will change it later if I get the right verse.