Hello! I'm Jai Johnson, an artist and photographer from Tennessee. Welcome to my Skillshare channel, where I teach people how to create art in an expressive style in Procreate on the iPad. When I'm not out photographing birds and wildlife spending time with my beloved subjects, I'm usually found in my studio painting the ones I've already met in my travels.
I've been creating art from various mediums since a very young age. In fact, my first piece was "published" when I was only 5 years old -- and on a television show! I was so thrilled someone liked my pumpkin art enough to share it on TV. I still feel that way today when someone chooses to hang my art in their space - it never gets old! As a teenager I was introduced to photography, and I took to that as well, but didn't become serious as a photographer until much later in life.
My passion is bird and wildlife photography. I bring that passion into my paintings of birds, wildlife, and also pets, because I adore our furry and feathered friends. I also love to paint flowers and simple objects from time to time, as well as exciting abstract paintings, which can be stand alone works of art, or used as new backgrounds with my photography subjects.
I spent the last 10 years learning how to merge traditional art with my photography and have enjoyed it immensely, as it blended the two things I love together as one. In 2019, I became sensitive to various chemicals due to a life-threatening allergy I developed. For a period of time, I had to stop using my traditional art materials completely ... bye bye acrylics, watercolor, pastels, oil pastels, alcohol ink and so much more! I was devastated, but I'd been digital painting for many of those previous years, too, so I picked it back up. And then a miracle happened -- I discovered PROCREATE. Once I saw what could be done when painting in Procreate, I bought an iPad, and I have been painting my photos on it ever since. In fact, in 2019, I challenged myself to create a painting a week, and I created 52 paintings that year, with many more in the following years. You can see examples of my finished paintings above.
My goal with Procreate was always to paint my actual photos. Not to paint "from" my photo {although I do some of that, too!}, but to actually PAINT THE PHOTO, and that's what I teach in many of my classes.
I also blend photos with different backgrounds to create fine art photography, and I also paint fun abstract paintings in Procreate. I hope you will enjoy my lessons! --Jai
