Digital illustration leading to jewelry design...

In 2018, I purchased a new iPad to experiment with illustrating using an Apple Pencil. I'd tried sketching using a mouse and with other varieties of styluses in the past, and never been terribly happy with the results.

When you paint in watercolor, once you've mucked up a painting/illustration, you generally need to start again on a fresh sheet of paper if you want a crisp, fresh rendering. Getting depth of color is tricky unless you paint in gouache or acrylics. With digital painting, you can screw up and then simply "undo" the steps that are not loved, so I decided to give the Apple Pencil/iPad combo a whirl.

I started out doing sketches of jewelry. This led to the thought of doing an illustration of my cartoonishly cute Pomeranian and somehow crafting jewelry from it, which led to doing a slew of pet portraits and necklaces. It's always fun to play with the latest toys!

Here is a smattering of the digital illustration:

Jewelry:

Animal portraits:

Animal portrait necklaces that ensued...