The Drawing Rant

19-07-2009


Just up out of the bed, a stack of wonderful jestercakes waiting in the microwave to be nuked so the butter melts even more, so while I am sipping at a cup of coffee to try and get rid of the tiny migraine I woke up with I figured I would have a little rant.

For as long as I can remember I have been drawing. My earliest memory isn't of me drawing, it is off me in a stroller walking around the first house we lived in and figuring out that you could tilt it if you pushed up against the fireplace. That and the screams from my mother as she reached out for me, only to glare because I had found out you could tilt and return to normal without hassle. Her panic entertained me no end.

But my proper early memories involve me with a crayon or a pencil and a sheet of paper, drawing away for hours. All through my childhood I would have a copybook or a sketchpad and have many bad drawings. School was the same, but at that point the drawings had started to get better. So good in fact that H, yes H from Chronicle fame, used to copy my pictures as I drew them (because we sat beside each other) and then claim that I copied off her.

So, for once and all, the record is being set straight here. H couldn't draw to save her life, she copied me.

Anyway my drawing became a part of me over the years. One of the smallest "silly" presents my Nan got me (Nan being the grandmother from the mammy's side of the family, a very important fact that needs noting since Gran is the dad's mother) was a little pencil top.

A little black cat with white feet. I probably got it when I was ten and I still have it safe and sound. She also got me a Flintstones folder for keeping the drawings in, which is also still with me to this day.

The point is that I like to draw. Throughout all my years I have drawn, in school I sat the Art exams, in college not so much. In fact college sort of killed my drawing for a while.

Then I got out of college, once again had free time to myself, and recently started the love affair of pencil and pad all over again.

But this rant isn't about the history of why I draw, rather about the change I made recently in my technique.

Before I used to draw in pencil and then ink over it in a felt tip pen. The reason for this is because I would then scan the image into a computer and make some small changes with a graphics program. Only downside to this was that the scanner would pick up any tiny imperfection that happened during the inking of the pencil image, so a lot of the computer time would be spent cleaning up these tiny mistakes.

All that has now changed with the introduction of my graphics tablet. I have no earthly idea why I didn't think of this as soon as a got the tablet. The new method for computer edits is to just scan the image in when it is a pencil one only, then use the graphics tablet and an art package to "digitally" ink the image. It saves a hell of a lot of time with post-scan cleaning. It even looks a damn sight better as well.

Since I have the gallery up now I can put up this rant, because you can kind of see what I mean. The first image is the original pencil sketch, the next is the digitally inked on and finally the finished product. =EDIT= Since I now have more than one gallery up, this article is referring to the "iRock" gallery.

With the amount of time saved not having to clean up a scanned ink image I reckon that the graphics tablet is really starting to pay for itself. It was brilliant before for making minor changes to images, but now it is just fantastic.

Go out and get one now, even if you have no use for one. Worth every penny.

If you happen to get a Wacom LCD one, give it to me.

Blue_jester


Tags: art


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