
I love the fact that I can so easily turn old pen-and-ink drawings like this doodle into a digital art masterpiece. All I had to do is trace the old drawing on the touchscreen with the digital tools available to me now. My electronic stylus and the free drawing app make re-inking the old drawing like a painting. The brush, line, or effect that you lay on the old drawing takes only a swish of the stylus. And it is so much cleaner and more stylish than the old way of inking a pencil drawing with a ballpoint pen.

Take for instance this digital drawing called “The Skinny Dipper.” It begins as a simple drawing filled with color. And then you can layer details over and under, blend in more colors, shapes, and shadows. It can become much more detailed and realistic. I used a photographic background under it, and then continued to make it an original drawing by painting over both the figure and every detail of the background.

And it didn’t stop there. I gave the boy, or possibly girl, a scuba suit to preserve his or her modesty and allow a deeper dive.
