I’ve been using Adobe Photoshop for over 25 years now. I started at the version before Adobe invented the concept of layers.
As you can imagine, at that time working with Photoshop was challenging because everything was immediately flattened – hence the “no layers” thing. So you had to save dozens upon dozens of iterations of your work in case you needed to go back to a previous step.
Around the same time I was learning Photoshop I was also learning how to draw digitally in Adobe Illustrator. And I was pretty good both of them.
But then Photoshop invented layers, my mind got completely blown and I put down Illustrator and stopped using it.
As it turns out, when you stop using something you completely forget how to use it. The longer I let my Illustrator skills get rusty and the more the program changed over the years, meant my Illustrator skills to slowly began to fade away.
But taking Immersion meant I had to pick up the pen tool again and remember how to draw vector graphics in Illustrator. It has not been pretty, and I have struggled a lot.
Below, you can see four images that show my progression.
Days 1 through 3 of trying to draw stuff were frustrating and very humbling. But I stuck with it.
I realize I am more motivated and can learn more quickly if I give myself a project. So I decided to create some new SVG graphics for my Canva contributor account.
They probably won’t be approved in time for Valentine’s day, but I decided to make some Valentine “stickers” for Canva.
As you can see by the first set of lips (Day 3) my first attempts were not good. But I stuck with it. And even though the finished products aren’t really what I would consider my illustration style, I think they are actually quite good. All of the images were drawn using the pen and pencil tools.
Next goal: do this a LOT faster!
