Digital Art with a Mouse + New author

  I'm so sorry for missing my post on the 10th!  To make up for it, I'm going to write this post super early (an entire 6 days early) so there's no way that I'll miss a post next week now!

  Today, I'm going to be talking about digital art.  Art created digitally is great; you can create all sorts of amazing effects and use all the colors that you can think of without having to pay extra to get the largest set of colors like with markers or colored pencils.  There are all sorts of great digital drawing programs that are available for free; Purplestarclub wrote a post about her favorites last month that you can check out by clicking here.  Personally, GIMP has always been my favorite.

  Digital art might seem scary to some, or simply too hard, because drawing with a mouse or trackpad is definitely not the best.  Fear not, because there are several methods to overcome these problems!  First off, there's a marvelous device called a drawing tablet.  The fancy kinds that are huge with display screens are very pricey, but you can get a decently sized basic one without a display for under 50$.  However, if you're like me and are completely broke and 50$ for a drawing tablet is too much at the moment, you can use the method I've been using for digital art since I started using GIMP.

  First, draw what you want on a piece of printer paper.  Then, using either a scanner or camera, take a picture of your drawing and save it to your computer.  Now, this is where having a good drawing program is important- not one like Microsoft Paint.  To do this easily, you need a drawing program with layers.  If you need to, ask a parent to help you download a free drawing software like GIMP, Firealpaca, or any variety of others for this. 

  So, using your drawing program, open the image that you'd drawn on paper and go over it on a new layer.  I suggest doing a lineart layer and make the coloring layers underneath it.  Use as many layers as you want- having different things on different layers makes it really easy to erase a mistake from one thing without erasing everything around it, and all sorts of various other things.

  And viola, you've got yourself a professional-looking drawing without having to deal with the pain that is sketching with a computer mouse or going in debt for a drawing tablet.  Though, if you are interested in making digital art seriously instead of just every now and then, I highly recommend getting a drawing tablet eventually, even if you have to ask your relatives for it for your birthday or Christmas or whatever gift-giving holiday you happen to celebrate.

 
  Also, there's another subject I would like to talk about.  I've been busier lately and overall no longer have a huge interest in Animal Jam, so I can't really keep up with posting on this blog every week anymore.  Don't worry; I'm not leaving you!  I'm just going to be posting every OTHER Friday instead of every Friday. 

  The new author who will be posting on the Fridays I don't post is going to be the talented Transions, of The Shimmering Diamond Animal Jam blog!  So next week, make sure to be on the lookout for her first post and give her a warm welcome here.  I know, Violet is the new guest author here, so you'd think she would be my first choice.  But her schedule is also too busy for her to post super often here, so I decided to bring Transions aboard the AJAC.

  And that's all for today's post; this is Crazcatlover, signing out.  Have a wonderful day full of firey Alpacas and digital doodles!  Byeeeee~!