Key Takeaways
- Creating professional illustrations on iPad is now possible, efficient, and portable. This is especially true with tools like Apple Pencil and Procreate.
- The iPad’s benefits outweigh its drawbacks, such as glare from outdoor screens or the need for frequent iPad upgrades due to development issues over the years.
- Digital art on iPad offers speed and efficiency, but may lack the romantic charm of traditional pen and paper art.
Traditionally, digital art is best done with a dedicated graphics tablet. However, thanks to improved tablet technology, some artists are now using regular tablets like the iPad to create their work.
Of course, tablets like the iPad can also serve as general productivity and entertainment devices, making them more affordable for professional artists. We wanted to know exactly how to create professional illustrations using the iPad, so we spoke to luxury brand artist Jessie Bayliss, who creates all of her work on the iPad.
When I found the right digital brushes and pens, I realized I could make them look completely hand-drawn, and it would be done in half the time.
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Meet digital artist Jessie Bayliss
Luxury brand illustrator working on iPad
Jessie Bayliss is an illustrator specializing in nostalgic illustrations and Victorian-style lettering for the luxury sector.jessiebayliss.comOr to herInstagram.
She has been working in the professional art world for 10 years now and was a hobby illustrator before that. Her art style requires a careful touch and subtlety to match her clients’ luxury branding. Before trying out her iPad, she said she was “using an Architect pen that’s less than a millimeter thick,” which she says was “really hard” and “took a long time.”
After drawing on paper, she “scanned it into Photoshop on my Mac, organized it all, scanned it, painted it, and then scanned the painted version again or painted it in Photoshop. The illustrations were shot for several weeks.” But after working this way for a few years, her partner brought home an iPad. She tried it out and made the switch quickly.
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“The first time I used an iPad was in 2016, about two years into my career,” Bayliss said. Since then, she’s replaced and upgraded her iPad a few times. Now she’s using a 5th generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro with 256GB of storage. When drawing, she uses an Apple Pencil 2 (hers has a magnetic charging feature), and she packs it all into a standard iPad case.
To help her find the best angle for painting, she uses what she calls a “really ugly stand” that she actually thinks is pretty cool. It’s chunky, giving the tablet a stable, easel-like base. The main application she uses for illustration is Procreate. She describes the application as a “useful” app for raster-based artists like hers. (Vector-based art, on the other hand, is better for traditional graphic design, like logo creation.) An iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and Procreate are all Bayliss really needs for illustration.
The 5th generation Pro’s eight-core M1 chip and ProMotion Display (variable refresh rate up to 120Hz) create a fast and responsive device, Apple Pencil 2 delivers high precision, and Procreate supports every step of the illustration process, from sketching. Layering, painting, saving, saving and exporting.
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Now her entire process, starting with commissioning a piece, is as simple as sketching in Procreate using an iPad and Apple Pencil, sending a first draft to a client, getting feedback, requesting changes to the final illustration, and then exporting it. Send in the file format desired by the client. Everything happens on your iPad.
In addition to Procreate, she uses a few other applications to aid her workflow, such as Miro, a visual workspace app. “If I’m working with a graphic designer or agency, we’ll have a Miro board and we’ll talk about it rather than just keep sending emails,” she says.
In addition to Miro, Bayliss says she uses Google Drive for an additional backup layer and QuickBooks, Etsy, and Pinterest for accounting.
Source: Jesse Bayliss
Love it at first bite? (You know, Apple’s)
Bayliss had no difficulty transitioning from using paper and pen to using the iPad.
When asked how long it took her to get used to drawing on the iPad, she said, “I’m stubborn. I don’t like change. I thought I would, but I react too quickly. I intuitively know what to do without having to learn. can.”
Part of this is due to the lack of lag. “There was lag on other tablets I’ve used, but on the iPad it was literally like drawing on paper. Honestly, there was no lag at all on the iPad.”
You intuitively know what to do without having to learn.
The paper-like feel is thanks to the paper-like iPad screen protector she equipped the device with, giving it a more matte feel while drawing.
In her opinion, there are three main benefits of using an iPad:
efficiency
The efficiency benefits are clear. Editing is easy, the zoom feature lets you fine-tune details faster, and you can pick colors from your image instead of physically mixing them, saving you the hassle of finding the right color.
portability
Regarding portability, she said, “Once the iPad came into my life, suddenly I could work in a coffee shop. I couldn’t bring paint into a coffee shop.” She even takes it with her on vacation.
“I can’t think of a holiday I haven’t had,” she says, “and it’s right there when I need to make amends quickly for someone.”
ease of use
As for ease of use, Bayliss has already explained how to use the iPad, and Procreate is intuitive. She demonstrated the illustration process using Procreate, which seemed relatively intuitive. Using the draggable reference image on the side of the canvas, you can select a drawing tool and start sketching, then add final outlines, finer details, and color in various virtual layers.
Is it too digital?
If you’re wondering if all of this is happening because it looks so digital, Bayliss assures us that’s not the case.
“My work looks very hand-drawn and old-fashioned. I don’t want it to look like I worked on a computer, which was my biggest concern when using the iPad. But when I found the right digital brushes and pens, it looked completely hand-drawn. “We realized we could make it visible, and it could be done in half the time.”
Is it always sweet or sometimes sour?
Is it always sweet or sometimes sour? Bayliss isn’t looking at the iPad through rose-colored glasses.
Here are some things she’ll love, including the Procreate app. The first is the longevity of the device materials.
iPad won’t last forever
First, there’s the fact that she feels like she has to buy a new iPad about every three years because problems arise. “If you use an iPad, you can probably use it for about three years before you start getting dead pixels and things like that,” she said. This makes life a little more difficult.
A dead pixel is a part of the screen that cannot be touched and therefore cannot be drawn on. She also notes that as systems get older, they start taking up more space and become slower. “The Apple Pencil will probably last about the same amount of time,” she said.
Apple iPad Pro 12.9 inch (2022)
Give me a (almost) real pencil
When it comes to the Pencil, she doesn’t like the second-generation’s double-tap shortcut feature. She thinks Apple is trying to be “too fanciful” without considering the impact on end users, namely that it’s easy to accidentally activate it.
Instead, Bayliss said, “I’d rather it had an eraser on the end like a proper pencil. Wouldn’t it be cute? And I’d like it to be yellow like a real pencil.” There’s a pink rubber at the end.” Unfortunately, I don’t have much faith that Apple will listen to this “grey is more flashy white” statement, but we can dream.
glaring issues
The last thing she would like to change about using her iPad is the outdoor glare and screen heat. She said, “I’d love to take my iPad outside, but that’s just not realistically possible. Even if it’s in the shade, the screen gets really hot.” But she says, “You can’t do that with pen and paper because the paper shines.”
I’d like to take my iPad outside, but it’s realistically impossible.
There are things she would change about Procreate too. Primarily, she wants the ability to use multiple reference images with her canvas. She said, “One thing that’s a little annoying is that if you move anything off the canvas, it gets deleted. You’re left with nothing but the one reference that’s allowed.”
Art is a disappointing work
Bayliss clearly believes the iPad’s pros outweigh its cons.
But there is also a nostalgic longing for physical drawings and paintings. “Isn’t pen and paper more romantic? I was able to take really nice pictures of my work. And when I was a kid, all I did was make art.” , so it’s kind of sad that there are so many good art materials that are no longer used.”
There’s something nice about physically engaging with a work of art in the real world, where the details ultimately cannot be reduced to pixels. And there is something good about rituals that involve working with different physical materials.
Isn’t pen and paper more romantic?
Nonetheless, there are things digital artists can do to solve this problem. Bayliss said he already uses a PaperLike screen protector, which gives the screen a more matte look. “It might sound silly, but it sounds like a pencil to paper,” she says. And, of course, she uses a “really ugly” stand, which can help recreate some of the feeling of holding a card against an easel.
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But ultimately, there’s no escaping the fact that art on the iPad isn’t art on paper. Although it offers amazing benefits such as speed, efficiency, and portability, it may not be able to capture the romance and indescribable quality of pen on paper.
Towards the end of our conversation, Bayliss said something that I thought demonstrated the absurd contradiction between the pros and cons of working digitally. “Sometimes I paint murals. It sounds silly, but when I paint murals, I’m so used to Procreate that I’ll go and press Undo on the wall.”
It sounds stupid, but when I paint a mural, I’m so used to drawing in Procreate that I end up pressing Undo on the wall.
Clearly, Bayliss has gained a lot professionally and personally by switching from pen and paper to digital art on the iPad, but it has clearly sacrificed something, even if it’s just the romance of drawing on paper. And now that digital mindset sometimes seems to seep into her pen-to-paper (or brush-to-wall) work.
Still, Bayliss is adamant that the efficiency benefits are worth it. If you can make twice the money by completing the task in half the time, there is no longer any argument. Well, let’s hope Apple and its digital art devices and applications continue to improve their attempts to capture the indescribable artistry of pen-and-paper.
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