A digital painting of a Cocker Spaniel dog portrait in the style of an oil paintingDigital Oil Painting of Cocker Spaniel Dog Portrait

I have decided to embrace yet another form of art. I love experimenting with different art forms and digital painting is no exception. Although I have basic experience using Photoshop for getting my paintings ready to make prints, creating art digitally from scratch is a new path for me.

I have a new tablet and a software program called Clip Studio Paint. It is a steep learning curve, but I have always loved a challenge, and I have only touched the surface so far!  I have to say, I absolutely love it!


As there was so much to learn, being a complete novice on this subject, I took an online course for beginners on Udemy, and Ed Foychuk’s “Clip Studio Paint - Essential Training Course” for beginners was friendly and easy to follow. I was lucky to get a special offer and it was so worth the investment. It’s great that I could rewind, watch, replay etc. until things finally began to sink in. I shall no doubt revisit his course regularly, just to keep reinforcing my learning.

For my dog portrait, I opted for an oil paint feel of the brush tool because that is what I am used to in the material world, and I painted as if I was painting on a canvas, complete with a paint palette for mixing colours. It is more of a sketch portrait, but it has laid down foundations for me to build on.

There are so many possibilities to explore, and as I am currently illustrating a children’s book, I have decided to embrace digital art for this project. More to come on that in the future.

In the meantime, I am thinking this is great for quick sketches, ideas, playing with shapes and colours, and using digital as a preparation for a final but material painting in oils or acrylics.  To do that though, I still have much to learn to use this program to its full potential.

Digital art has its own rightful place within the artworld, and there are some amazing artists out there who use this medium. I hope to continue learning all the capabilities of this software and push the boundaries of what I can achieve.  I guess my motto is "Never stop Learning!"