Welcome to our Krita tutorials. Krita is one of the best free painting programs available and includes a great variety of tools and features. While Photoshop has features that can be useful from painting to photo retouching to photo manipulation, too many options create a tough learning curve for a digital painter.
Krita keeps its interface painter friendly with a clean style and minimal distractions. Tools are accessibly placed, and most of the window is dedicated to the canvas. Since Krita has such a gentle learning curve, it's easy – and important – to familiarise yourself with its features before diving into the painting process. So we've put together a series of tips to get your started. It's definitely worth it as the program is so good it made it into our pick of the best software for digital artists.
Stick with this page for a tutorial on finding your way around the interface, or skip to page two for a step-by-step guide on how to tidy your sketches using Krita.
How To Draw Easy, Digital Art
Open up a new document by going to File>New. To control the size of the canvas, you can select from one of the templates in the Predefined drop-down menu, or either change the dimensions yourself. Choose either pixels or inches for your dimensions and set the canvas size to the ratio you want. I prefer a larger file size, no smaller than 3, 000px on the shortest size but no larger than 7, 000px on the longest. Finally, set your Resolution either to 300 or 600; the higher resolution, the greater quality for the final image.
On the left-hand side is the Toolbar. I'll be pointing out some of the tools you're likely to use the most. The Freehand Brush tool is what you're going to be doing all your painting and drawing with. Underneath that, the Transform tool is a handy feature for selecting and changing the size or shape of a section. The Gradient tool and Fill tool are useful for filling in large sections with colour, and the Color Selector tool is necessary for blending when painting. The Outline Selection tool make selecting a specific part of your piece easy, and is often used in conjunction with the Transform tool.
On the right-hand toolbar is the Advanced Color Selector, Layers panel, and Brush Presets. Using a colour wheel makes shifting hues easy, as well as useful for setting up complementary tones. The Layers panel enables you to create either new paint, mask, or filter layers, giving you full control of your canvas. Lastly, the Brush Presets makes it possible to quickly look through and select brushes. You can filter by types of brushes, or select your favourites for quick access.
How To Get Started With Digital Art
By selecting the Freehand Brush tool and clicking the Edit Brush Settings button on the top toolbar, you'll see a large variety of customisation options for your selected brush. The two features that you'll mostly be using will be the Opacity and Size filters. Make sure that Pressure is selected for either of them, depending on what kind of brush you're using, so that Krita syncs up to your tablet properly.
When you're ready to save your canvas, go to File>Export and select your preferred file type. I usually stick to JPEG format unless I'm exporting a file with transparency, in which case I'll use a PNG file and make sure I have an alpha channel selected.
Sara is an illustrator who works with both digital and traditional mediums, and enjoys making YouTube videos teaching on various art topics.We use cookies in order to track popularity of the content on this website. See our privacy policy to find out more. By clicking 'Accept', you give your consent. Your preferences will apply to this website only.
Digital Drawing For Beginners: An Introduction To The Tools
Tap into the world of Procreate, the groundbreaking app for the iPad that brings unbounded creativity into the hands of digital artists of all levels!
In this invaluable beginner’s guide, professional artists show you how to draw, paint, and sketch digitally, at home or on the go. Packed full of expert tips, diverse projects, and inspirational artwork, it unlocks the secrets of this affordable, versatile, and highly intuitive software. Exploring the creative potential of layer masks, blend modes, and how to create your own custom brushes, leading artists from across the concept art and illustration industries share eye-opening step-by-step tutorials to enable you to confidently create your own digital masterpieces. The engaging and accessible chapters take you right back to basics. From creating your first canvas to exporting your final artwork, Beginner’s Guide to Digital Painting in Procreate shows beginners and experienced creators alike how to get the most from this digital art game-changer.
The book will be beautifully presented in hardback and will focus extensively on my creative process – something that my followers have often asked about. It will also hold a comprehensive collection of my works, including exclusive art pieces made especially for it, and some of my works in progress. There will be step-by-step tutorials on watercolor painting and product design, and information on how I have been able to build a successful career as an artist.
What Is Digital Illustration
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Below you’ll find a list of 12 tips to help you get the most out of your digital art program as a beginner. These tips were written with most digital art programs in mind. Whether you’re rocking Photoshop, Krita, Procreate, Gimp, Illustrator, or Clip Studio Paint, these tips should apply.
There are drawing tablets where you’re drawing directly on the screen, and drawing tablets wherein you’re only drawing on a surface while looking at the monitor.
How To Draw: Fun And Easy Ways To Get Started
The more layers of pressure sensitivity a tablet has, the more you’ll be able to add nuance and subtlety to your work with ease.
Since this isn’t a post about which tablet you should get, you can spend some time doing research if you don’t have one already. The main point is that you’re going to want to use a tablet, and that it should have pressure sensitivity to augment your workflow.
Tools are the many little squares and menus that are designedly nestled in whatever program you happen to be using. Usually there are only a few you need to concern yourself with for the purposes of actually drawing and erasing.
Krita Tutorials: Learn The Basics Of The Digital Art Software
When you open your digital art program for the first few times, it pays to spend a good chunk of your energy exploring the tools. Seeing what hotkey activates them, what they do, and how they feel.
Mostly, you’ll likely be using a drawing tool, an erasing tool, a selection tool, and a move/transform tool. Those are the bread and butter of digital art, so make sure that you prioritize learning how those operate, as they’ll make your life as an artist much easier.
This one is ultimately about simplicity. Some artists have the tendency to spread themselves quite thin over a large array of brushes and tools. They hop onto the next one before ever growing comfortable with the previous one. It’s not the best strategy for learning, and certainly not the best strategy for gaining the consistent results necessary to hearten yourself to continue learning.
Fa] + Digital Art Step By Step For Beginners
So stick with the basic two or three the program offers. Or if you do download and add additional brushes/tools, pick one or two from that pack and stick with them. Make sure they’re very utilitarian and good for a variety of purposes, and not just for special-use cases.
Layers are one of the best reasons to go digital as an artist. They allow you the freedom to sketch, refine, and test.
Learning the layer menu in whatever are program you’re teaching yourself is crucial. Learn how to drag them around, turn them on an off, merge them, rearrange them, and so on. A mastery of the layer menu will allow you to augment your process, and make your workflows much more efficient.
Digital Painting On An Ipad For Beginners 4003 — Art Classes And Lessons On Long Island And Online
This one is pretty simple. If your fingers are constantly on that shortcut, you might be developing a dependency. That dependency on the “undo” function can harm your output, learning, and create crutches you’ll have to free yourself from later.
While it is a potent tool or making sure you don’t destroy your work, make sure you don’t get so addicted to it that you’re unable to finish your work. If you’re always trying to get the “perfect line” or being overly meticulous for the sake of perfection, you’ll advance slower than those who own their mistakes and fix them in other ways.
Draw circles.
Best Digital Art Courses To Take In 2023 — Class Central
