Draw Your Own Illustrations, Clipart, and Avatars

Nebraska Educational Technology Association Spring Conference

April 20, 2017 • Omaha, Nebraska

Got a smartphone or tablet? Then you could be drawing your own illustrations! Using original artwork in teacher and student projects has many benefits. Tony Vincent's technique is based on tracing photos, so don't worry if you are embarrassed by your drawing skills. This session features the free Adobe Draw app for iOS and Android, and the technique can be applied when using other apps.

If you create something during or after the session, please tweet it with the hashtag #NETAdraws. It will be fun to see the first attempts at digital drawing.

That awesome remote Tony uses to advance his slides and highlight content is a Logitech Spotlight Advanced Presentation Remote.

AutoDraw.com, Bitmoji, and Prisma are websites and apps that do the artwork for you.

Even though technology can "draw" for us, there are many reasons to draw your own illustrations.

Autodesk Sketchbook and Explain Everything Interactive Whiteboard are apps that support multiple layers and bucket fill. Tony's preferred app is Adobe Illustrator Draw. It is free, but requires logging in with an account.

Apple Pencil is a really great stylus. However, it is nearly $100 and only works with an iPad Pro. Even cheap styluses are better for drawing than fingers. You can get 10 packs of styluses for $1.58 and free shipping from Amazon.

Drawing of an Apple Pencil

There are different approaches to drawing people...

Black outline, Color outline, and No Outline
 

Watch as Tony says a person by tracing her photo. The video is sped up 1200 times...

 
 
 

Chwazi Finger Chooser is a free app for iPhone/iPad, Android, and Amazon Fire.  Here's how it works: Each member of a small group puts a finger on the screen. After a short pause, the app pops up a circle around one finger.  The number of people that can touch the screen at once depends on the device. For example, an iPad can choose from among 11 fingers, but an iPhone’s maximum is 5.

The Learning in Hand Instagram account features edtech tidbits, and many of them are illustrated with Tony's drawings. You can learn tips about iPads, Google Suite, websites, Chrome extensions, and more.

It's really tasty, so you should follow @learninginhand!

 

I thought I’d share some before and after images so you can see the original photo and the drawn illustration. Drag the sliders below to compare. As you will see, I keep my drawings simple—I eliminate distracting backgrounds and unnecessary details. You’ll notice that I often change clothing colors.

You might be wondering how I made these comparison sliders. Well, it was pretty complicated to get going—scripts and code had to be put into my website and onto this page. Read this for some slider options.

 

Tony Vincent made a 13 minute video that features his technique for tracing photos. The video includes an example of drawing a map, drawing an object, and drawing a person. You can read the transcript.