Although I wear multiple hats but the memory of the day I discovered my calling as a digital watercolorist remains vivid. It was a spring morning, a season that always evokes a wistful yearning for my childhood. Spring meant new beginnings and for a few fleeting weeks, I lived in pure bliss. But this time, the story was different, as the first wave of Covid lockdown was announced for 21 days, instilling fear but also granting me some freedom. It was during this time that I decided to explore watercolors, fascinated by their exquisite texture all my life. Disappointingly, all stationary shops were indefinitely closed, including my cherished favourite one from around the corner, while online deliveries were being canceled one after the other. Though my hopes were dashed, my determination persisted. Thus began my quest for the perfect digital tools, apps, brushes, and techniques that would enable me to replicate the same texture and feel of traditional watercolors on an iPad. After installing and uninstalling some thirty to forty apps, I finally found the ones that resonated with me and continue to use them to create my artworks in the style you see. This is how I think I became a Digital Watercolorist.
So, for almost 4 years, more precisely, since the first day Covid Lockdown was implemented in my city Mumbai, I’ve been creating an art piece a day which quickly turned into a clock tower a day. I was always fascinated by Clocks and imagining all the lonely clock towers overlooking various city squares devoid of people, soon became my subject which hasn’t shown any signs of fading away just yet, it’s been 4 years and counting. Each day brought with it a different challenge, hardest of them were losing dear family members, falling prey to the dreaded virus myself, figuring out life in pandemic, finding help and then helping the ones who needed help. There were days, I wondered why the heck am I still sketching anything anyway. But the artist in me convinced the pragmatic myself to keep going and find meaning in it later. I still haven’t found that meaning but perhaps it’ll reveal itself to me like all other mysterious things in my life at the right time.
I often end up using a bunch of apps together. For line-work, I mostly use procreate, reasons being, it is perhaps the most responsive app and doesn’t crash on me. Also simple to use. If not procreate then Kyle’s brushes for photoshop which you can just as easily install on Adobe Fresco on iPad are my another go to brushes for line-work. Another reason I prefer procreate for line work is the ability to work in symmetry. It centers the piece when I need to and makes it pretty to look at. For colors, I have kept a personal palette inspired by Copic collections of markers containing about 30 colours and saved it in a library in photoshop. I rarely use a colour outside of that. Infact sometimes I regret not having enough reds in it, but perhaps someday I will revamp my palette and include a bunch of reds in it. It helps keep the feel similar over time. As far as the app is concerned for actual coloring, Adobe Fresco has some brilliant live brushes with very real and convincing water blending and fluid effects, including splatters. The app keeps crashing on me though, I wish it didn’t, but the quality of the brushes is almost worth it to push through all the inconvenience of using the app. And then occasionally you’ll find me using other apps as well for a few elements here and there, Takeshi’s Sketches, Paper, Concepts, etc are some of them. So, this is what helps me achieve the look I want and I’ve begun to love this texture.
Apart from creating Art, I also make films, compose Music and design Architecture.
Head over to Instagram to contact me if you have any other question you’d like to ask. Although I’m available on most social media but Instagram is pretty much the only place I’m active on. Or you can old school write me an email on sorout@gmail.com I would love to answer any questions you might have and if you’re an artist yourself, please tell me about yourself, we can build something of value.
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