Doing The Drawing Exercises With Digital Tools

It was always there, to be honest, hidden behind a link in the Morning Sketches APP’s help page. But I decided to extend it into something useful. And I want to tell you a bit about the philosophy behind the Digital Sketching Canvas.

The images in this article are all drawn with the Digital Drawing APP.

I didn’t want to make an all-singing, all-dancing app; I don’t have the ambition to compete with the ProCreates, Clip Studio Paints, Photoshops, Kritas, Gimps of the world. They already exist, and some options are affordable. Why would I want to compete with that?

I instead wanted a digital sketching tool that I could embed in the website, integrate with the exercises, and use inside the exercises.

And I wanted a cool place where it was easy to do draw-overs for feedback. Those were the use cases I had in mind.

You can find the digital drawing tool as a stand-alone page here.

But the tool really comes into its own on the pages where it is integrated into the exercises, like in the Morning Sketches APP, because the exercise “sends” an image to the sketching app that can be placed underneath your drawing, essentially embedding the exercise inside the digital sketching tool. The images in this article were created in the Morning Sketches app.

To enable the Digital Sketching Canvas, you have to click on the Digital Sketch? button in either the Morning Sketches APP or the Timed Drawing section.

For the warm-ups, randomized sheets are generated. Reference images are sent to the canvas, and if you have a 3D model, the image is also sent to the digital drawing tool for reference.

You can also load a reference image from your device.

You can move, zoom, and rotate the canvas you draw on, and you can independently move, zoom, and rotate the reference image.

You can draw and specify colors and pen widths. White acts as an eraser because the drawing is blended with the reference image through a multiply blend mode.

You can lighten the canvas. The way I use it is like this: I make a drawing, then lighten it, then draw an improved version over it.

And you can save the canvas.

That’s all there is. No undo, no layers, no brushes, no pressure sensitivity.

The idea is that the setup’s simplicity makes sketching easier; no distracting features. Just sketch.

The Digital Sketching Canvas is also part of the Timed Drawing Section. If you turn on the digital drawing tool, you get the reference image inside the canvas and can start drawing it immediately. And when time runs out, or you click on the next button, you are immediately presented with the following reference image inside your canvas.

My wife tested it in the Timed Drawing section , and this is what she drew:

Please go check it out! It is also embedded in the Morning Sketches APP.

New Year’s Resolutions?

New year’s resolutions don’t work. You tell yourself that, starting from January 1st, you will be doing something. But why not start with it right now? What will make you start on January 1st?

For the past few years, I have done something else; I decided on a “theme of the year”. It is more useful, as it acts as a beacon. You can write it on a post-it note and stick it on your monitor or a wall you often look at to remind you, or place it at the top of a document you frequently open to remind you to focus on some aspect.

The theme can be anything, really. You can even have more themes, but try to keep them short. My two themes for 2026 are “Clean up, draw more. ” I need to clean up my home as we collected a lot of stuff we don’t need anymore. I need to clean up the website’s code and its interaction design. And I want to draw more.

I have three top priorities that haven’t changed over the years: family, health, and drawing. But the theme reminds me of a thing I will tackle within the context of these priorities.

With a theme, you can not fall off the bandwagon like you can with New Year’s resolutions. With the latter, you promise to start doing something. Themes are gentle reminders of what you wanted to focus on. You can accidentally drop out, then drop back in when you see a reminder. It is more optional, and you feel good when you do something related to the theme. This is different for resolutions: you tend to feel bad about breaking them, and the best-case scenario is that you follow through on them. I don’t know how to explain it, but it feels different. With resolutions, you either feel bad or neutral. With themes, you either feel neutral or good.

With themes, you feel happy if you did something theme-related. With resolutions, you feel bad if you didn't keep them.

With themes, you get a dopamine hit from even doing something small that is theme-related. With resolutions, you only get a dopamine hit when you do something ambitious.

With themes, I find that you generally feel happier.

I keep a private logbook for the year, and my yearly theme is the first line at the top of that document, so I see it and am reminded of it regularly.

Try a yearly theme! You will discover that it is a kinder way of treating yourself.

Yours sincerely,