But the long and the short of it is this: it's a way to isolate part of painting so that you can only paint on top of it. I'll have to explain masks later because actual masks are something else entirely.
Now the process is so 'second nature' to me that I can usually figure out how to create a clipping mask in any program even if they don't called their version of it the same thing.įirst, it's a type of 'mask'. But initially it all seemed very complicated to me. Dozens of tutorials on Youtube explained the use of them, and sometimes even explained the 'how to do' part of the process. The clipping mask was one of the first things I learned how to do in digital painting. I thought I'd start with something I went over in my Beginning Guide blog: the clipping mask.
All of these things can be done in any type of art software - Photoshop, Krita, Procreate, Artstudio Pro, Paintstorm Studio, Sketchbook Pro, Corel - whatever you have, or whatever you can afford. I initially thought about doing a how to use Photoshop or Procreate tutorial - but that's not really the point of this. They don't rely on a specific piece of software. But these are the things I see over and over again in all these thousands of hours of tutorials, and they've all be incredibly useful for me. And I'll do them in small simple chunks of information (random order). I thought I'd try and write them up for everyone else on the off chance that another beginner might find them useful. They are literally "do this and your art gets better" type stuff.Īnd I've written them all down - I write notes to myself (they're utterly illegible to anyone else, but I use them all the time). These are more things I consider 'tricks of the trade'. Truth is, I don't really understand a lot of that. I couldn't even begin tell you now who I learned these things from because I've seen them in so many different places. Over the years I've noticed that there are a number of topics that get repeated over and over again in every way imaginable. I figured out the medium doesn't really seem to matter (they all have their 'tricks' but the concepts are the same). But that quickly morphed into anything art related regardless of the medium (digital, oil, watercolor, etc) or the software used (Photoshop, Krita, Procreate, Art Studio Pro).
Initially I was just trying to learn how to use Photoshop properly. But that said, I've literally watched thousands of hours of videos. And I'm still constantly struggling to master all of it.Įverything I've learned about art I've learned from watching Youtube videos. And everything I've learned is still very fresh in my mind.
Art is far newer to me - I'm still learning it. But everything I know about programming and writing were things I learned many years ago. And I technically know far more about writing and programming than I do about art.
I'm not a professional artist - more of a hobbyist.