What is impasto and how can you do it in digital art?

Impasto is a traditional painting technique that originated in oil painting and can be used to bring art to life through thick, textured brushstrokes. It’s most famously used by impressionist and expressionist painters, such as Vincent van Gogh’s thick swirls of paint and texture to create movement and even affect how light interacts with the canvas. But it can be seen in earlier art Titian and Tintoretto as well as later from Howard Pyle and Leon Kossoff. Modern concept and fantasy artists like Dmitry Marin and Jakub Różalski are great examples, too. (See more in our list of fantasy artists to follow on Instagram).

In traditional art, impasto is done by building up layers of paint on the surface of the canvas; the marks made by the brush become physical ridges, casting shadows but also revealing the history of the painting. Impasto is a technique of expression, conveying how and why paint is applied.

But how can this tactile, physical form of painting be applied to digital art, where the canvas is a smooth screen or display? In recent years, new apps and software – Corel Painter, Rebelle, ArtRage, and Procreate are some of my favourites – have come a long way to emulate the feel of paint, with brushes that use lighting, shadow simulation, and brush dynamics. So to an extent, it’s easier than you think. But there are some tricks and things to consider alongside choosing the right app.

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Brushes in the mentioned software react to the pressure you apply as well as the angle of tilt you use, so you need a good stylus and one of the best drawing tablets to be able to digitally push paint across the screen. The best digital art software will calculate light, colour blend, and texture in real-time, suggesting volume, so you’ll need one of the best laptops for drawing to handle the simulation.