Playing with the Tablet

 Last birthday, my husband suprised me with a Tablet. I was so excited to finally play with one of these. I use it for editing all the time. It gets some getting used to of course, when I started it felt awkward and unlike paper. The balance of looking at your hands and the screen can be tricky. After you adjust you no longer have to look at the tablet. It helps me to have a piece of paper on the surface for texture. 
Tonight, for kicks and giggles, I decided to play with more of the art side of it. I've always been addicted to facebook's graffiti, but drawing something within Photoshop was more of a challenge. Now that I've learned the program backwards and forwards, I've realized that you can do so much more. 

I opened the picture that I wanted to draw and placed it within my screen to the left. I used it to reference, not trace. Using the pencil tool, I marked the proportions and began an initial sketch. I went back and strengthened the lines. With each building/part of the sketch I opened a new layer. First I shaded with black and white and then opened a new layer for color. After I finished the background, I realized I didn't like it. Easy fix: turn off the background layer and use a fill color. The great thing about layers is that you can keep your object separate and erase in sections. Also having the photo file open in photoshop allows me to grab the same colors instead of coming up with a palette.