I’ve used fairly complementary colours, but they don’t quite play off each other as much as I’d like. The colours and textures remind me of polished stones, perhaps mosaic pieces. I’ve been working with it to add colour to this mandala design from a collection of mandalas I’m working on. It’s given me an elegant way to do something I’ve previously achieved by the use of layer after layer after layer. This is going to be so useful for me going forward, now I’ve played with the techinique. It masks the rest of the image from the selected areas. It was the way that when an area is selected and colour or texture is applied, the colour/texture only applies to that selected area, or areas. That means using the screen at a different angle to my usual, which is a good thing I think as I now can’t hunch over the screen. It does mean I need to use my keyboard along with my Microsoft Surface Slim Pen and Microsoft Surface Studio.

This is the selection tool, and it’s a great way to select areas for adding colour, texture and/or effects to as well as copying, pasting, moving, rotating, resizing and so on. I woke a bit earlier than usual this morning, and while I was coming around I watched an Autodesk Sketchbook Pro tutorial by Trent Kaniuga – Sketchbook Pro for Absolute Beginners and came across an explanation and use of a tool I’d not worked out for myself.

Digital painting autodesk sketchbook