One of the richest sources of inspiration is the deep well of art that has been created throughout history. In recognition of how much there is to learn, Da Vinci Eye is proud to present our Master of the Month series. Each month, we will feature an artist, style, or subject from which to learn technique and to gain insight. Da Vinci Eye’s AR Mode, with its variety of features, allows us to dive deeper into what sparks our creativity.
In particular, tracing or mimicking the artwork of established talents offers many unique benefits. Going over the lines of experts is an experience that raises illuminating questions. What details might have caught their eye? How did they construct the image to cement it on the page? And through what visual language did they bring the scene to life? It is no surprise that this method of study is a longtime feature of classical art education.
Da Vinci Eye’s Master of the Month: James McNeill Whistler
Our inaugural Master is American painter James McNeill Whistler. While most known for painting his mother, Whistler was also a prolific sketcher. A look through his extensive catalog reveals an immense talent for sculpting form in light and shadow.
Da Vinci Eye’s AR Drawing Study of Whistler: Ponte del Piovan
Da Vinci Eye’s AR Mode is well suited for an initial sketch. With the original image anchored, we can easily sketch rough outlines. In this step, it’s helpful to move quickly, focusing on how the elements of the piece work together, rather than starting with the finer points.
With these sketched guidelines, we move to inking, using the original as a reference for shading and technique. In particular, it’s helpful to pay attention to texture, stroke weight, and line direction in Whistler’s sketches. Within those features, we can discover how he captured what he witnessed, bringing the scene into cross-hatched reality.
Curves, cross-hatching, and contours combine into a city scene centered on a bridge spanning a canal, signs of human activity scattered throughout the image. All of this is conveyed in monotone, summed up through short and simple lines. In copying this work, Ponte del Piovan (1879-80), one might be struck by the contrasts of light and shadow, the minimalist approach Whistler takes to certain elements, or the way he can keep the details from blurring together despite the lack of color. And finally, using the Da Vinci Eye app’s AR Strobe feature, we can compare the original to the one-of-a-kind reproduction we’ve created, learning from similarities and differences alike.
This month, we invite you to consider how Whistler might have seen the world, practice the ways he captured his sights on paper, and learn to play with that vision on your own terms.
Before you start drawing in AR Mode, you will need to create an anchor.
In this case, the anchor is part of a playing card. An anchor literally anchors your digital image to the same position of an object in the real world. As long as the anchor stays in view of the camera, Da Vinci Eye will know where to place your digital reference image.
To make an anchor press Tools, select the AR menu, press Anchors, and then + Make Anchor.
Now, press Take Picture. Here, you take a picture of your anchor.
Next, crop the image so it’s just the anchor. You don’t want the surrounding area visible.
Finally, you need to enter the approximate height and width of your anchor. Da Vinci Eye will automatically calculate the second dimension. If you input the width, it will automatically calculate the height. You can also change the unit of measure from inches to centimeters.
Now, if your anchor is in view of your camera, your reference image will be a superimposed relative to its position.
When you are drawing, it’s a good idea to tape the anchor in place. That way it doesn’t move around. You can hold your phone in your hand while you draw, however, this is very difficult and not recommended.
We do highly recommend suspending your phone above or in front of whatever it is you’re drawing on. For example, you can place your phone on top of a tall glass. If your phone doesn’t have a case, it may slide around. To stop the phone from moving around, just place two cut rubber bands on top of the glass.
You can also buy or make a stand. This is a cheap microphone boom stand and a cell phone holder attachment. With this setup, you can easily draw using an easel. You can check out these two products in the Product section of the app.
You may notice the phone’s camera going in and out of focus. It is set to auto-focus by default. Once your anchor and drawing surface are in focus, you can turn off auto-focus by pressing Tools > AR > Focus Lock. This will turn off auto-focus.
To position your reference image on the paper. You should pinch the screen to bring the full camera feed into view. Then press the Move button to move your image relative to the anchor. You can enlarge, shrink and rotate the image.
Make sure to unpress the Move button when you are finished. This locks the reference image in place.
You can now move and zoom the camera without moving the reference image. Press the Opacity button to adjust the transparency of the reference image. To make the image more transparent, move the slider to the left; to make it more opaque, slide it to the right.
You can also stylize images by using Filters, or break down images into layers by color value by using the Breakdown feature. You can learn more about filters and the breakdown feature by going to the Learn section of the app.
Now it’s time to start drawing!
First, trace the important parts of your reference image. Don’t forget, you can zoom in and out without disrupting your drawing to get the fine details, then add the finishing touches by adjusting the opacity all the way up and using the Strobe feature to compare the reference image to your final drawing.
To learn more about individual features, try completing the challenges on the home screen, and also check out the Learn section of the Da Vinci Eye app.
As always, if you have any questions about AR Mode, feel free to contact us at info@davincieyeapp.com or by using the email button at the bottom of the home screen.
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You can also check out our video on how to get started with AR Mode below, or subscribe here for more tutorials.
To start off with, we’re going to use an image with a lot of shadows in it.
We’re going to magnify an image a little bit for this tutorial.
Using Da Vinci Eye, it’s really easy to put lines down on your paper that match where things should be in your drawing. But if you’ve ever tried to shade your drawing or use it to reference where shadow should go, that becomes a lot more difficult.You end up not being able to tell the difference between what’s the reference image and what you’ve shaded. You also can’t tell how dark or light you shaded something in, in comparison to their references.
To fix this, we use the Strobe tool. The strobe tool fades the image in an out, and this lets you see the difference in the shadows.
The goal when you are drawing in this mode is to try and get what you are drawing to look indistinguishable from the reference picture. So when the image fades in and out, you should stop being able to see a difference.
You can use the speed slider to make the image fade slower, or you can make it fade faster, whatever works the best for you.
And that is how to use the strobe feature to make realistic drawings with Da Vinci Eye!
If you haven’t already, check out the app! It’s available on iOS and on Android. If you have any questions whatsoever, please reach out via email. You can use the email button in the app or directly at sam@davincieyeapp.com.
And as always, if you make something cool, please tag us. We would love to see it. We’re on all the social medias: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter. Find us, follow us, and tag us. We’re at @DaVinciEye or @DaVinciEyeApp, and we’ll even repost your work.
One more thing… Make sure that you have your notifications turned on or subscribe to us on YouTube, so that way you can get notified for when the next lesson drops.
This drawing mode uses your phone’s camera feed and lays a transparent picture you want to draw over that camera feed. If you look at your phone’s screen, you’ll be able to see both the picture you want to draw and the place where you want to draw it at the same time. This lets you easily trace an image onto any surface.
To get started, you need to place your phone on top of a tall glass.
If your phone doesn’t have case, it might slide around when you touch it. This will make adjusting settings while you’re drawing very difficult. To fix this, cut two rubber bands and place them on top of the glass about an inch apart. This will stop the phone from moving around.
You can position the phone any way that is easiest for you to draw. If your phone is positioned to the left or to the right, you can reorient the toolbars by tilting the phone upwards.
You should make sure you can see both the feed from your camera and the transparent image you want to draw. If your camera feed is black, you might need to go into your phone’s settings to make sure Da Vinci Eye is allowed access to your camera.
Now it’s time to position your picture on the paper. Press the move button, and using one finger you can pan the image…
Using two fingers, you can zoom, shrink and rotate the image.
When the move button is unpressed the image and the camera will be locked together. This lets you zoom out to see your drawing as a whole or zoom in, so you can draw fine details.
Finally, to make your image more or less transparent, you can use the Opacity slider.
Move the slider to the left to make your picture more transparent and to the right to make it less transparent.
Check out our Learn section to watch Da Vinci Eye instructional videos:
Or try completing the challenges at the top of the home screen to learn things like: How to record time lapse videos of your drawings, how to add filters to pictures to make them easier to draw, and how to use advanced features like the strobe to make super realistic drawings.
As always, if you have any questions or need any help, shoot us an email using the email button at the bottom of the home screen.
You can also check out our video on how to get started with Classic Mode right here:
For this lesson, we are going draw this photo to fit a 14 x 17 piece of paper:
1. Start by drawing a large circle. This is just for reference so draw this pretty light. This is going to represent how big the head is going the be. (Note that I made my circle roughly the same shape as her head)
2. Enlarge your image to match the size of the circle. You are basically making a hole, then sticking the face in it!
*You can now erase the circle you made as you won’t need them anymore*
3. Begin to trace the reference image as you normally would. The secret here is we want to make some areas as exact as possible because we are going to use these areas as reference points later.
You’ll notice that because your phone’s camera is so close to your paper, you can only see a small section of the paper. So how do we draw the other parts of drawing?
That’s easy… We just move the phone to where we want to draw next! Make sure to follow the next steps in order to correctly do this!
4. Press the move button, and with just *1 finger*, move the image to align with your reference points. In this case, I’ve drawn the lips in pretty fine detail… so I am going to use those as my reference point.
Just get it pretty close because you can just nudge your cup to get it precisely aligned.
*Do not forget to press the move button again when you are done aligning your image.*
5. Now just keep repeating this step of drawing a section, moving, and aligning.
This whole outline took less than 5 minutes!
*This same process works for an iPad!*
This wraps up our tutorial on how to draw large pictures in Classic Mode! Don’t forget to upload your pictures in the app on iOS or tag us on Instagram!
Hey Everyone! Today we are going to be talking about the breakdown feature in Da Vinci Eye. Breakdown Mode is also called Step By Step in the Android version of the app. If you don’t want to read all of this I’ve posted a video at the bottom of the page, however below goes into a bit more depth.
If you haven’t already download the Da Vinci Eye app!
Using this mode, you can turn any picture into a step-by-step drawing tutorial. It does not give you lines to draw. Instead, it is more like a custom paint-by-numbers picture, which is more in line with how professional artists draw and paint.
Learning to see color values
The goal of this mode is to train your eye on how to see different color values or shades of gray. Eventually, you will learn how to identify light, mid-tone, and dark areas without the aid of the app. Simply put, this mode teaches you how to draw realistic portraits.
Drawing and painting, when going for a more realistic look, isn’t about drawing lines. If you look at any old master’s painting or actual photos of people, you never see and hard lines, just gradual transitions of one color to the next. Even when an artist, who is going for a realistic look uses lines, they usually use them to help depict areas of intense shadows.
Many artists start drawing by breaking a picture down into steps or layers. They will often cross their eyes, or squint, to make what they are looking at blurry. Blurring the image lets them simplify the colors into lighter or darker areas. Then they draw the lightest areas first layering on top of them the darker layers and adding in details towards the end. This drawing mode emulates this process.
Getting Started
To get into breakdown mode on Android just press “Step by Step” on the home screen. Step by Step is the same thing as Breakdown mode.
To get into breakdown mode in iOS, start or continue any drawing. Go to Tools, then scroll to Breakdown, then press the Breakdown Mode switch.
That is going to take you to this screen.
You’ll notice the image broken down into just a few shades of gray. Hence the name of the drawing mode.
Each of these shades is going to be turned into a layer or Step for you to draw.
Underneath the image preview is the Cut Out toggle. We’ll cover what this done a little later in this article.
Under the Cut Out toggle, you can configure how many steps, also aka layers, that you want your drawing to have. The more steps you have, the more detailed the preview image will be. However, you don’t want to go over 5 or 6 steps. After 6 steps, it becomes too challenging to draw.
Finally, there is the exposure slider. This changes the exposure of the drawing before the breakdown process applied.
Play with the exposure slider along with the steps until the preview image looks close to how you want your drawing to look.
When you are done press the Done button in the toplight corner of the screen
At the bottom of the screen, you will see the color pallet. The color pallet tells you what order and shade to color in each layer.
The layer you are currently viewing, and supposed to color-in, is highlighted in red on your screen.
The layers are red because if they were the same color that you are trying to draw, it would be difficult to tell the difference between where you need to draw and where you have already drawn.
That being said, if you are drawing or painting a picture with a lot of red in it, you can change the color of the layers by going by pressing the Color buttons in the breakdown tab.
After the final Step, there are three additional buttons on your color pallet.
The first one is the image preview from the breakdown settings screen, the second one is your picture in black and white, and the third is your original picture. These help you add finishing touches at the end of your drawing
Cut Out Mode: OFF
We are going to start by making a drawing with cut out mode off. The way this works is, we are going to use the same very light color for all of these steps. But we are going to be layering that color on top of itself, to bring out the darker parts of our drawing.
To demonstrate this, I am using a watercolor pen filled with a little bit of black ink and water.
For the first layer, I am going to color in all of the red that is on my screen. Try and do this as evenly as possible. You don’t want darker and light spots, try to keep it consistent.
Now we are going to move onto the second layer by pressing the button labeled two.
We want to put down this layer precisely as before. By creating a new layer on top of parts of the first layer, the drawing will become darker where it needs to be.
Next, press the third Step’s button, and do the same thing. Put another light and even layer down on top of the 1st and second layers. You will start to notice your picture beginning to form.
For the last Step in the color pallet, this is your darkest layer, again do the same thing one more time.
Finally, we will use the last three buttons on the color pallet to add our finishing touches. You can now add details that you may have missed, or the breakdown layers may have oversimplified.
I like to use the strobe feature to compare the reference image to what is on the paper. I’ll talk about that in another post.
In the end, your picture should look something like this:
There are so many fun ways to experiment with the breakdown feature.
Here is another example where instead of using shades of gray, I am using lines to differentiate the layers creating a cross-hatching effect.
Each Step is a different line direction. Step one just lines from top right to bottom left, Step two just lines that go from the top left to bottom right, step three lines that go from left to right, etc…
When all of these lines get layered on top of each other, you end up with a very fun drawing!
Cut Out Mode: ON
That was Cut Out mode turned off, now lets check out when cut out is turned on.
Instead of layering the colors on top of each other, it separates or cuts out each layer. This might be good if you are using a medium that doesn’t work well with layering. For example, we are going to make this portrait using highlighter markers.
You will notice that the steps now go from darkest to lightest
For this first Step, we are going to use purple to represent our darkest color. However, you can choose any dark color you like.
Now we are going to move onto our second Step, and use a blue marker that is a little lighter in tone than the purple marker. Notice that the blue layer (Step 2) never overlaps with the purple layer (Step 1).
For the third Step, we are going to use the yellow marker to represent the lightest colors. Again notice that our yellow layer never overlaps with the purple or blue layers either.
We will skip the final Step in this mode because it shows us the negative space in our picture. That means those areas are supposed to be white, and there is no need to color them.
Next, we will go back to see if we missed any spots in our blue and purple layers. It is easy to miss coloring in spots with this mode, and you don’t want unintentional random gaps in your drawing.
The final thing I am going to do is use the last three buttons to add finishing touches to my drawing. This time I am using a black fine tip marker to add in some details that were missed by the breakdown layers, but are in the original picture.
In the end, your picture should look something like this.
That was our deep dive into breakdown mode!
If you make some cool drawings, we would love to see!
Upload your pictures in the app on iOS, email us, or tag us on Instagram!
