Appendix I: Digital Art and Drawing

Over the past several years, interest in digital drawing has increased. I have explored it myself, in the most fundamental and low tech of ways, but by no means do I consider myself to have expertise in this particular discipline. There have been some teachers and professors who have recently requested that I provide a chapter on digital drawing. There are a few different reasons why I am not including a specific chapter on digital drawing in the printed edition - first, I do not have the expertise required to effectively and thoroughly address digital drawing, and second, I would like Drawing Essentials to remain focused primarily on a non-digital approach to drawing as I believe there are some excellent resources available on digital drawing that provide far more helpful information than I can provide. But fear not, as I am committed to providing an excellent resource for digital drawing information. To this end, I have consulted with my colleagues in the Digital Art and Design program at KCAD to address this interest in digital drawing.

The faculty of the Digital Art and Design program are the creators and providers of an amazing and free website with a significant amount of helpful information about digital drawing. They have created an open source website for the instruction and support of their students and anyone else who may have an interest in digital drawing. Because this website is open source, anyone can access it to get all kinds of helpful information and instruction about digital drawing. Additionally, the website is regularly updated by the Digital Art and Design faculty to reflect the constant shifts and upgrades in digital technology requirements and resources, including the most recent versions of Wacom Cintiqs and Wacom Pro Drawing Tablets.

There is a close working relationship between the Drawing program and the Digital Art and Design program, as Digital Art and Design students study figure drawing with the faculty in the Drawing program. These students work digitally side-by-side with other students from other disciplines using non-digital media and processes. While assignments and projects remain the same for all students in Figure Drawing I and II, desktop Cintiqs (a Wacom display where you draw directly on the monitor) are available for those students with a focus in Digital Art and Design in order to facilitate their investigation of the human figure using digital tools and processes.

I have documented some digital drawings from our figure drawing courses (and a few from other drawing courses) over the past year and am including a number of these drawings on the open access Companion Website to this textbook at www.oup.com/us/rockman. There are also a number of examples of student work on the open access website link provided by my colleagues in Digital Art and Design. The web address is www.kcaddlc.org (Kendall College of Art and Design Digital Learning Center) and is your resource for accessing the KCAD Digital Art and Design knowledge base and relevant external resources. Again, the KCAD site is free for anyone to use. More specific links to areas of potential interest provided on the KCAD site are included below, representing just a few of the many resources provided.

Keep in mind that while the link to KCAD’s Digital Learning Center (www.kcaddlc.org) is constant, additional links to external sources provided on the website can change on a fairly regular basis. Accessing the KCAD site directly will provide you with the most current links to additional information. If a link provided below does not take you to where you want to go, check the website directly for updated information.

  • GETTING STARTED USING DIGITAL DRAWING TABLETS:

https://sites.google.com/view/kcaddlc/tutorials/cintiq-tablet

  • DIGITAL CHARACTER DRAWING COURSE SITE:

https://sites.google.com/view/kcad-digital-character-drawing/home

  • VERSIONS OF CINTIQS AND DRAWING TABLETS REFLECTING RECENT TECHNOLOGY:

-WACOM MobileStudio Pro 16 Computer 512 GB, which allows you to draw directly on the screen

-WACOM Tablet – Intous Pro Pen Medium, a digital drawing tablets that connect directly to a computer

-MonoPrice – 10 x 6.25 inch Graphic Drawing Tablet with 2048 pressure sensitivity levels

My colleagues and I are delighted to share these resources with you! We are confident that you will find them helpful and informative.

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