Digital mediums can be used for practice just as well as paper and pencil. Practice life drawing by using the brush or pencil tool and a dark color of ink or paint. Draw a live model, spending 5 to 15 minutes on each pose. You may wish to visit a live drawing class with your laptop computer and a tablet in order to find models to practice drawing. Perform gesture drawings in order to improve your ability to draw in motion. A gesture drawing is quick and fast and starts with one line for the spine. After determining the placement of the spine you add arms, legs and a head.
Typically, depth is defined in a drawing by the shadows and highlights of an image. Highlights and shadows are caused as light falls over an object. Color areas hit by light a lighter color and areas without light a darker color. Most digital painting programs use pressure to determine the darkness of a shade. Use a light touch when drawing highlights, and press the pen hard when drawing a dark color. You can also draw over your first line to increase darkness. The more times you draw over the line, the darker your line becomes.
Most digital painting programs offer several options for choosing a color. Use the color wheel to find a specific color, the eye dropper tool to use a color already in the picture or the color chart to use a generic color. Color darkness and texture varies, depending on the tool you use. The paintbrush tool creates a line of moderate thickness and darkness. Create solid colors without any highlights or shadows by drawing a completely sealed shape and clicking on the paint bucket tool. Click in the area of the tool to fill it with the color. Use the color wheel, and move towards the edge of the wheel to darken the color. Move towards the center of the wheel to lighten the color.
Digital art offers an advantage over traditional art in that you can use digital tools to enhance your drawing. Open the levels and color tool by clicking on the "Image" file and selecting "Levels." Move the right arrow to make the image lighter or the left arrow to make the image darker. Many people move the arrows so that they hit the ends of the curve, where the curve falls to zero. Adjust colors by selecting "Color Balance" or "RGB." Play around with the options to make the image appear more like one hue, to increase contrast or to add a specific tone, such as red. Use the filters found under the "Filter" menu to add a unique look to your picture. Click on the name of a filter to sample it. To keep a filter, select "Apply." To remove a filter, click on the "Cancel" button.