Harry Forsdick
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Our Travels
  • My Websites
  • Music
    • World Band
  • Art
    • My Process >
      • My Process
    • Art Sales >
      • Art Sales Easy Canvas
      • Art Sales Pictorem
    • Cary Art Exhibition >
      • Scene and Herd: Harry Forsdick
      • Where Tech Meet's Art: Harry's Way
    • Art and Technology
  • History
    • 400 Years in 40 Minutes >
      • 400 Introduction & pre-1700s
      • 400 1700s
      • 400 1800s
      • 400 1900s
      • 400 2000s
    • World War II >
      • LexRemembersWWII >
        • Events >
          • Past Events
        • Resources
        • Veterans >
          • VeteransSearchList
          • VeteransAlbum
          • VeteransCompleteList
        • Oral Histories
        • News >
          • Lexington to Celebrate ​75th Anniversary of WWII
          • Letter from George Gamota to Lexington Remembers WWII Committee and Supporters
          • Lexington WWII Committee Researching Lexington Veterans
          • Lexingtonians Who Served: ​The Adler Family
          • Lexingtonians Who Served: ​Ruth Fullerton & Denis Fullerton
          • Lexingtonians Who Served: James Silva & William J. Wiles
          • Heroes Among Us
          • Aurio Pierro
        • Photo Gallery
        • Facebook
        • About Us
    • World War I >
      • Bookclub Excerpts
      • LexRemembersWWI >
        • George Gamota Intro
        • Remembrance Poppy
        • Harry Forsdick Intro
        • LexRemembersWWI Instructions
        • World War I Timeline (19 minutes)
        • World War I in 6 Minutes
        • LHSoc Lecture Series >
          • LHSoc Lecture 1 India's Role in WWI
          • LHSoc Lecture 2 Edith Norse Rogers and Veteran History
        • Lexington's 100th Anniversary of the End of World War I >
          • Lexington's 100th Anniversary of the End of World War I
          • Lexington's 100th Anniversary of the End of World War I >
            • LexWWI CT 1
            • LexWWI CT 2
            • LexWWI CT 3
        • Lexington and the War >
          • Funding the War
          • Patriotism and Sacrifice
          • Newspapers
          • Photos
  • Volunteer
    • Lexington by Foot & Phone
    • COVID-19
    • Jitsi
    • Town Meeting Member
    • Beaconsfield Trust >
      • Beaconsfield Windows Plan
      • Beaconsfield FAQ
      • Old Beaconsfield Windows Plan
      • Trash Room Sign
    • LexList >
      • LexListQuest
      • LexListThankYou
  • ServiceYouTube

My Process

November 1, 2018
Like other methods of drawing and painting, my process is highly syncratic and evolutionary.  I have taken several courses on drawing, watercolor painting, and sketching -- without a lot of success.  I had a lot of trouble producing things that I really liked.

Then I decided to add my skills with computers and photography to the techniques I had learned in the traditional art courses.  In particular, I added the following to the standard artistic techniques I had already learned:
  • a large ( 12.9" ) iPad Pro
  • an Apple Pencil
  • a matt surface screen protector to provide traction on the iPad for the Apple Pencil
  • the app ProCreate
  • online services for printing on stretched canvas: Easy Canvas Prints, and Pictorem
This allows me to jump over my biggest impediment: getting the shapes and perspective of the scenes I draw correct.

ProCreate supports multiple drawing overlays so that I can put a photograph on the bottom layer, and a layer for sketch lines on top, and then after I turn off the reference layer, I can put various drawing/painting layers below the lines layer.  I vary the kind of features I put on the layers -- background, faces, hair, clothes, or separate features (truck, grass, animal, etc.).  By separating the painting into multiple layers, I provide myself a natural overlap and obscuring from foreground to background, as well as protection from screwing up something that I have already drawn. 

I can get textures of the painting surface (e.g., watercolor paper, canvas, wood, etc.)  by use of layers of texture that I purchase online from various vendors.

ProCreate supports an enormous set of brushes covering every medium of drawing and painting.  It is easy to mix media in ways that are hard to do in the real world.

Procreate supports various artistic tools such as brushes, pencils, pens, knives, smudgers, erasers, stretchers, warpers, liquifiers, ...

I can get colors from both a fixed palette as well as from the colors in the photograph.  

I can also use photo processing techniques such as color balance, exposure, sharpening, and blurring on the final image. 

Finally once I am satisfied with the final image, I use one of several online printing services to print the image I produced using ProCreate in any of several alternative renditions (on canvas, acrylic, metal, wood, photo paper) and sizes.

I have spent 2 years learning how to use ProCreate effectively -- and continue to learn and develop new ways of creating paintings with each new work I do.

You can purchase my paintings through Easy Canvas Prints or Pictorem.
Copyright © 2020 Harry Forsdick & Marsha Baker