Digital drawing fun

A while ago I bumped into this little website called "odosketch," and truly fell in love. Odosketch is basically a little place to draw pictures on your own digital canvas with a limited number of colors and brushes. The colors are all mostly pastel and muted, and the canvas remains a sandy, paper-looking backdrop for your drawing's start. Once you get drawing, you understand that the color of the digital canvas and the palette of sketching colors given work really well together. You can erase your mistakes, draw over things, and so on, just as you might do if you were making your own sketch with actual paper and pencil.


(If you're lucky enough to have access to a Wacom drawing tablet, then that will work too... but I like the challenge of using just a mouse. It adds an innocent charm to the end result that I find completely endearing.)


The best part about drawing a digital doodle on odosketch is that once you decide you are finished, you can watch the progression of your drawing as you, the artist, actually drew it. You can see it from the start of the blank canvas, through all your drawing motions -- what you drew first, how you colored it, what you decided you hated and ultimately erased, etc -- all in a sped-up little "film."


I have only drawn 2 small things since finding the site, as it can be a little time consuming. But if you're ever bored, have a bit of time, are feeling creative, and are able to use a mouse well, then click on over to odosketch.com and give sketching there a try.


It's so fun to watch drawing videos that yourself and other people have drawn (the most recent sketches are posted in an updating gallery on the home page that you have access to.) You get to see how many artists work through their drawings from start to finish, what they have erased, how they moved from color to color, brush size to brush size, and so on. It's an intriguing way to spy -- but you have to be quick in your note taking, as the "videos" are so quick.


Here is one piece I've done (of the 2!) that I kinda like.

Sit back, watch, enjoy, and at least once, try it out for yourself.


You're gonna love it.