Tell An Untold Story - Wacom Experimenting

I really want to learn to use a wacom, so I attempted it for the first time today..

What challenges did I face?

• I didn’t pick a very good drawing to work from (just a quick one I did on location). I realised this near the beginning but I made myself much through and finish it just to try to get to grips with how the tablet works. It would have worked better had I joined up my lines to make more solid shapes, added detail to the leaves and left less blank space (this was the hardest to fill I found).
• I attempted to create colour swatches throughout the drawing but It would have worked far better if I had organised them all and created a colour scheme at the start. It is really difficult to tell which colour is which from the swatches. 
• I also should have put the background colour on a different layer to the leaves because I wanted to change it half way through but I couldn’t because I had already added the leave colours on top.
• I also found jumping between the tablet and keypad a real struggle and I kept drawing unwanted lines. Next time I am going to programme the commands into the tablet so that I don’t have to do this.
• I also hadn’t decided beforehand weather I wanted to give the image some aerial perspective or a more flat decorative feel so instead it is a weird mix between the two. Deciding this beforehand would have definitely benefited me.

What went well?

• I have definitely got to grips with the basics of how to use the tablet, which is a super useful skill for future projects.
• This is also the first time that I have used lots of colour in this project. This is something that I have a tendency to avoid because I find it difficult and really time consuming. I found this was a really effective way of forcing me to use it and I am definitely going to make myself do it from now on. It makes such a difference (gives my work a liveliness).
• Although it is a little dense next to the rest of the image, I think that the fence works really well. It has a nice three dimensionality to it which you couldn’t see until a added the white.

How am I going to move forward?

• If I had more time I would like to add some detail to the plants (in black pen) , fill the blank space in the middle and add some more colour to the foreground.
• Now that I have learnt how to sort of use the wacom I would definitely like to use it again (this time with a better drawing). I was surprised at how much fun I had using it. I think that it is just the thing to inspire me, as lately I have been finding work a massive chore.