DRAWING WITH WACOM AND OTHER
COMPUTER GRAPHICS TABLETS

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HOW DO YOU DOODLE
on a desktop computer?

Not very easily - if you're using that blunt instrument known as a mouse!

Make friends with a graphics tablet

A computer mouse is only good for drawing really tiny images. An emoticon is rarely bigger than 15 x 15 pixels, a pda agenda icon even smaller. These graphics are so tiny, they're easy enough to make with your mouse. Just magnify your digital canvas up to a crude mosaic, and dab in the colours pixel by pixel.

An image any larger and you start to wish for the control of a stylus and tablet. Individual pixel punching simply won't do. Even a message picture for a tiny old mobile phone screen can be 72 pixels wide. That's about an inch. Not what you'd call enormous - until you compare it side by side with the favicon.

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You can of course draw on paper and scan in the result, but drawing directly on your computer saves trouble and has a host of advantages.

The obstacle is our friend the computer rodent. Sorry, but this common computer drawing tool was never meant for the artistic life.

If you want to draw on your computer, the best solution is to replace the mouse entirely with a graphics tablet. Several old mice of mine have been languishing at the back of a drawer for a year or two. They were just too clumsy for drawing.

You can use a tablet stylus with pen point precision for everything. Clicking and dragging are smoother and more controlled than ever they were, even in Word and Excel. The stylus can be pressure sensitive for painting. The point allows fine photo editing or drawing directly into Photoshop.

When you're using a stylus with a basic Wacom tablet, you don't of course draw directly on your monitor. The tablet sits at the side of your computer. But after all, so did your mouse. You soon get used to this slightly displaced kind of drawing. In case you feel a bit wobbly at first, a matching mouse does come with Wacom tablets. I had to take a look to see if I still had my Wacom mouse, because after an hour two I stopped using it.

You can pick your graphics tablet up to draw on, even with a lead. My Graphire Bluetooth does away with wires, so I can draw with the tablet on my knee or wherever I please. (Both stylus and mouse are wireless too.)

Professional artists and designers can go a stage better with a Wacom Intuos tablet - or even a Cintique. Like Tablet PCs, (for which Wacom provide the software,) the Cintique is a portable touch screen on which you can truly draw just as you would in a sketch book. It's a pretty magical sketchbook too, with all the layers, filters and graphical abracadabras Photoshop can add to the painter's brush.

These days, of course, you can draw with your finger directly on an iPhone or an iPod Touch. As I write, the iPad is coming in a week or two, and promises direct drawing and painting on a bigger hand held screen. The ipad may not have pressure sensitivity, but looks set to rival the Cintique! 

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Digital art painting tips for Wacom and other graphics tablets

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