Creating Art on Photoshop: A Basic Tutorial

So, for this post I am going to show the basics of how to create and post digital art on an art blog, using my Gulliver's Travels illustration. First of all, you'll probably want to use a fancy thing called a tablet. It's a kind of plasticky pad you draw on with a stylus like a pad of paper. The points on the pad correlate to pixels, so its like you are drawing straight onto the screen. A must have for any digital artist. It can connect via USB ports to the computer. Here's mine a Wacom Intuos 3:

These can get pricey, so if you don't have one, go take your ID card to the media lab in the basement of the HFAC (provided you are a BYU student, of of course), and you can try one out for a few hours. For this tutorial I am using Adobe Photoshop CS4, but any of the recent photoshop versions will be great, this is a pretty simple tutorial.



First of all, keep in mind that some basic drawing skills are nice to have. Photoshop is just like a really fancy pencil. But, you don't have to be a master here. Even if you're drawing from a photo reference, its good to have a plan. For me, I had an illustration for my book club assignment Gulliver's Travels in mind.

I also talked about layers in another digital literacy lab. So I'm assuming we have basic knowledge of what layers are. Just to brush you up, they are like transparent pieces of paper all stacked up on each other. They are the reason that photoshop is SOOO wonderful.

1. Open up a blank file in photoshop. I have a white opaque background, and my size is always 2000x2000 pixels. That gives me enough room to doodle and play around with ideas. So go to the tools palette, click on the brush tool (mine is usually set to size 4) and start sketching!

An all-too-familiar scene for me.

2. Sketch!  If I don't have a sketch yet, I usually make a few transparent layers of sketches, in light colors. Below are two layers of sketches I have made to get it in mind what I want my finished product to look like. Its good to have a vision. With Photoshop, the possibilities are almost TOO endless, its too easy to mess around and not come up with a finished product. Also, I NEVER draw on the blank white background. When you draw on transparent layers, its so much easier to erase.

A scene is being created. This part is the most fun for me. Its where you can be really imaginative, before the real work begins.

3. Create lineart and add texture. Create a new transparent layer. Using straight-up black as your color, start to carefully create good solid lineart. You can use the magnifying glass to zoom in on areas for accuracy. Click on the little eye in a box next to your sketch layers to hide them. I wanted an "old book" feel to my drawing, so I found a photoshop texture online and pasted it into a new layer. Then I lowered its opacity, and here is what we had at this point:

4. Add Color! Okay, so you should now create a layer underneath your lineart layer and name it "color." Make sure its transparent, and now you can make your paintbrush slightly bigger and start adding color, being careful to stay in the lines. The layer is underneath, so you don't have to worry about covering up the black lineart, but you don't want it to bleed under, so....yeah. I added a fun background and finally saved it as a .JPG! Voila! Art!

You might notice that I use a lot of layers.  That's because I like to mess around with effects and then hide them if I don't like 'em.

      
5. Post! Now to connect with the world through your artistic creations. The more you post and comment on other people's blogs the more you can create a kind of blogging network of fellow artists. Assuming you're using blogger, open up a new post and click on the little portrait frame next to the word "link." Up comes a window. Click upload and find your JPEG form. Blogger reads Jpegs, not photoshop documents, so its really important that you have it saved as such a format. Publish your post! Repeat as many times as you'd like. Even if you're not interested in being a professional artist, you'll be amazed at how therapeutic it can be to post your artwork weekly or even monthly. It keeps the right side of your brain progressing, which I think is really important for everyone, not just illustrators or graphic designers.


I find that Photoshop's interface scares people sometimes, and I understand why, it has millions of functions. But just take it one step at a time! Work from basic things up, add more into your repertoire via experimenting and tutorials if you're interested. On that note, there are tons of really in-depth tutorials out there for all kinds of stuff. Check out deviantart.com and search under tutorials, or even google it. There are also tons of sites with textures for photoshop out there. You can try messing around with color settings, too if you're feeling a bit more daring. Check out the filters--they can get pretty interesting effects. I'll end with my favorite unknown quote:

"Never stop making your art. Hate your art, love your art, but never stop making it."