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Well this weeks promotional painting is my German Shepherd Breed Art Painting! I am offering this painting as a 24x36 inch gallery wrapped canvas for only $100! This offer is limited to 5 prints and is good until Sunday 5/15/16. Check it out and be sure to check back for future promotions.

Thanks for looking!

Becky Herrera
www.beckysdigitalart.com
www.pixelpaintcreations.blogspot.com

In honor of the Kentucky Derby, I am offering my painting, The Duel as a limited time promotion. This painting depicts the 1978 Triple Crown Winner, Affirmed, battling it out with his rival, Alydar. I painted this digitally, on an iPad Air 2 using the app Procreate. This painting is being offered as a large, 36x24 inch canvas print for only $100! The offer is good until midnight on 5/8/16 or until 5 prints have sold.


--Becky Herrera
www.beckysdigitalart.com
www.pixelpaintcreations.blogspot.com

While most artists have a dedicated art studio or at least a dedicated portion of a room devoted to their art, I don't. Another reason I love digital art. When I used to work traditionally, I used to take over the kitchen table with all my colored pencils. I had a whole closet dedicated to art supplies like pencils, papers and a portfolio to store completed works. Living in smaller apartments, and wanting to go even smaller, this storage and accumulation of art supplies is not appealing. In fact, I would go weeks without drawing or painting because I hated lugging the supplies out and put them away when done.

Well now my art studio is small and portable and can be set up and put away in less than 3 minutes. It only takes up one laptop bag to store everything I need. The ultimate in portability! Another major plus is I never run out of supplies which is huge when there are no art store nearby.

So what do I use and where do I set up? I mostly set up at either the kitchen table or my computer desk, but the key is being able to put everything away so quickly so it is out of the way when I am done.

My main device, and where most of the work occurs is my iPad Air 2. I got it last year in June so it is a little less than a year old. I really want a, iPad Pro, but will wait until I get a little more use out of this one. I have the iPad in a slim case so it fits nicely in my purse or laptop bag. This allows me to paint and draw anywhere.

My main program that I use on my iPad is Procreate. I use it 95% of the time, even though I have several other art programs loaded as well. Procreate is very intuitive unlike Photoshop. It is also a steal at only $5.99. in the app store. I will do a more in depth review on it as well as other art programs in the future.

As for styluses, I've tried many. I have settled for a "dumb" stylus over the bluetooth ones as I've never really liked any of those. The one I use is a Wacom Bamboo stylus. You can replace the nibs when they are worn and it is very solidly built. It has a great feel that I haven't found in any other stylus. It is $14.99 on Amazon . It also comes in different colors but I just have the basic black one. I also have a Sensu Brush, but I don't use it nearly as much as the bamboo stylus.

Last but not least, I use a Macbook Air 13 inch laptop. I came from a huge 17 inch PC laptop that was really a desktop replacement and not very portable. This new laptop is great. It is small but still has a decent sized screen. Since it is a Mac it works more naturally with all my other idevices. I love the amazing battery life and it does everything I need it to. I use the Mac to do final color corrections to my paintings. I use a program called Photoscape that is $30.00 in the Mac app store. I also use it to show my reference photos so I can zoom in to the details when needed. I store all my completed paintings on the Mac and on an external drive. I recommend the 13 inch Macbook Air to the smaller 11 inch one because of the SD card slot that the 13 incher has. I use a jetbook lite SD card to expand the storage of my Macbook by an extra 256 gigs, which is awesome, especially in the more limited harddrive space of these smaller laptops. This macbook starts up blazingly quick due to the SSD drive. It starts up as fast as my iPad. This machine completes my art flow as I will upload my completed paintings to my various online stores, color correct as needed and add any final touches that may be necessary.

All in all, this is my art studio. It works great, is extremely portable, and I never run out of supplies. I still have all my traditional art supplies stored in that closet, but maybe I will one day free up that space by getting rid of the supplies I no longer use.

What are your digital art studio setups? Feel free to comment below!

--Becky Herrera
www.beckysdigitalart.com
www.pixelpaintcreations.blogspot.com

I am offering a 25% off discount for Mother's Day! This offer is good for all my prints in my store. Just type in code HSPUDA at checkout to receive your discount. Offer is good until 5/7/2016. Don't wait until the last minute to find that perfect gift for Mom!


--Becky Herrera
www.beckysdigitalart.com
www.pixelpaintcreations.blogspot.com

Hi everyone!
I am posting my promotional painting a little early this week because I won't be around this weekend. Anyways, this weeks painting is my Hawaiian Sunset. I decided to go large with this promotion, as this painting would look great as a large canvas print for a living room or office. The canvas size for sale is 36x24 inches and it is a gallery wrapped canvas. The price is only $100. This is nearly $120 off the regular price which is a wonderful way to get a large print more affordably. The sale is limited to only 5 prints or until Sunday at Midnight, which ever comes first. Be sure to Check it out!

Thanks!



--Becky Herrera
www.beckysdigitalart.com
www.pixelpaintcreations.blogspot.com

Hi all I just posted a new blog post on Pixel Paint Creations. It is very relevant for any digital artists out there or anyone in general that keeps valuable data on their computer. Lets just say I almost lost 20 hours worth of artwork. Luckily I had a working backup but it was pretty scary.



Well I had a little minor catastrophe yesterday. Since I’ve had issues with computers in the past and losing valuable data, I’ve learned one thing. Backup and do often and in several places. Don’t rely on one back up either. This I found to be true yesterday.

It all started with me actually wanting to do my weekly backup. Relying heavily on my iPad and computer, I back up regularly. I do a weekly backup of my iPad on iTunes as well as have the iCloud backup feature turned on. Since iOS 9 though, iCloud backup isn’t reliable so I don’t hold too much comfort in it. Yesterday at the time of catastrophe, the last iCloud backup I had was 4/19/16. So my main back up method of my iPad, where my art is contained, is iTunes. Imagine my horror when I plug in to do my backup and I get several errors, a trigger on my antivirus and a message saying that my iPad couldn’t be backed up because of incompatible data. What?! I try again, same error. I try to restore from a previous backup from a week ago and here is the clincher. That backup was corrupted as were the last three before that.

Well after a little freak out session, I took my computer and iPad to my brother who does computer work for a living. He took a look. Apparently my iPad had a windows virus on it and was trying to infect my computer. Considering I have a Mac and not a PC it didn’t infect my computer but it did corrupt backups and prevented any new backups from being made. Because Apple loves keeping things a secret, it is very difficult accessing certain parts of the iPad, at least with out jailbreaking it. We tried restoring from the iCloud backup I did have. It restored, but with the stinking virus on it.

Now I was irritated but not too worried as I had backups of most important stuff, except one thing I neglected. This is where my heart dropped in my stomach. I hadn’t backed up the actual art work that I was working on in my art app, ProCreate. I had the png files but not the open layers files. My snow leopard painting that I’m almost finished with wast there. I had to save it! So with the restored but virus ladened iPad I exported the .procreate files for the 4 pieces I was working on. The .procreate files are like .psd aka photoshop files that keep layers intact. In fact you can export .psd files instead from ProCreate if you wanted to. I uploaded them to my iCloud Drive which is one of my many cloud backups. They were safe. The next thing my brother recommended was to wipe the iPad and start new. That means no restore from a previous back up. The thing I dreaded came to be. Reluctantly I made sure everything I wanted to keep was safe and we hit the nuke button.

I set up the iPad as new, and got my settings back in order. I then downloaded my most used apps aka ProCreate and a few others. I imported some of my photos and imported my brush settings and .procreate files back to ProCreate. YAY! They opened up and work. I didn’t lose any artwork!. I actually really didn’t lose anything this time around. I probably will find something gone eventually, but the stuff I need now is safe.

What’s the lesson here. Don’t rely on one back up method and have several different backups of valuable documents. More info on Pixel Paint Creations!


Thanks,

--Becky Herrera
www.beckysdigitalart.com
www.pixelpaintcreations.blogspot.com

Well I finally did it! I started a blog to document my digital art journey as well as to try and promote the legitimacy of digital art. Pixel Paint Creations is going to be a place I can showcase my works in progress as well as completed paintings. I will also post my sales and promotions there too. Other ideas I was thinking of is reviewing the different apps and methods that I use. Hopefully digital art will one day be more accepted. Until then I'll just keep doing what I do... create art that I love and am proud of and hopefully others will feel the same.


--Becky Herrera

www.beckysdigitalart.com
My Blog Pixel Paint Creations

I have a new promotional painting this week! It is my horse portrait close up painting. It was painted digitally on my iPad using the app ProCreate.This painting will be printed on canvas at 11x14 inches. The discount price is only $50! The offer is good until Sunday, 4/24/16 at Midnight or until 5 paintings have sold.

Thanks for looking!

Becky Herrera
www.beckysdigitalart.com
My Blog Pixel Paint Creations

Another Weekly Promotion! This time it is my Blue and Gold Macaw painting. This will look lovely in a wide range of decor. I am offering it as an 11x14 inch gallery wrapped canvas for $55. That is ore than half off! This deal is good until 4/17/16 at midnight or until 5 prints have sold. Stay tuned for future weekly promotions!


Thanks for looking!
Becky Herrera

www.beckysdigitalart.com

Spring has finally sprung and in honor of that, I am offering a 25% off Spring Sale on all custom pet portraits! This is 25% off the digital file art fee only. This offer is good until May 1st. Check out my post on how to commission a portrait for all the details on getting a one of a kind portrait of your best friend
Commissions. If you want to contact me feel free to do it here Contact or check out my Facebook page at Becky's Pet Portraits. I post all my latest creations and what I'm currently working on there as well. Thanks for looking!

-Becky Herrera
www.beckysdigitalart.com
www.beckyspetportraits.com