Digital Puppy Painting with Stroke by Stroke Video

This digital painting of a chocolate Havanese puppy dog was created on an iPad mini with the Procreate app. I used my index finger for some of the strokes, but most of the painting was done with a Musemee Notier V2 stylus.

This is my first digital painting on the iPad, if you don’t count a few doodles. The overall approach I took is very similar to the way I paint in oils or acrylics. I block in a loose representation, trying to get the position of the features in the right place. Then I adjust and refine until I’m ready to call it finished.

One of the nice features of Procreate is that it captures your brush strokes as are you are working, and then lets you export a movie. I think it’s kinda neat to be able see the painting emerge in the video:

Except for the signature, the painting was done on a single layer to better mimic the process of painting in traditional media. The source of the painting was an image I purchased from a stock photo site. I printed the image on 4×6 photo paper, and kept the print in sight while I was painting.

The first image above is actually a crop – here is the whole image of the painting: