iPad and Android Tablets for Drawing, Doodling Painting

HOW DO YOU DOODLE
on a desktop computer?

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

The computer rodent was never meant for the artistic life. Drawing with this early digital drawing tool is a bit like drawing a cobweb with a brick.

To draw and paint on your desktop computer, you really do have to get a graphics tablet. Wacom tablets are the leading brand. Wacom produce a range of tablets from simple for the occasional office doodle, to fully equipped with programable buttons and multiple styli for fine art.

You can use a tablet stylus with pen point precision for everything. Clicking and dragging are smoother and more controlled than ever they were with a mouse, 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. That you do with an iPad or other hand held tablet. The desktop (or laptop) 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. When I got my first Wacom, I had to take a look to see if I still had my mouse, because after an hour two I stopped using it. I put it away in a drawer and have never used it again.

You can pick your graphics tablet up to draw on. I still use mine on my knee. That is, when I'm not drawing on my iPad or Android tablet, currently an HTC Flyer.

The advantage of painting on a hand held tablet is, of course, that it is hand held!

Drawing directly on an iPad or Android tablet is just like drawing on a sketch pad and is truly mobile. I do find the iPad on the heavy side to hold, preferring the 7" screen of my Android Flyer, but I have to admit that, so far, there are many more sophisticated art apps for the iPad than there are for Android tablets.

Hand held tablets have a well known disadvantage in comparison with desktop tablets. No pressure sensitivity. Press on a Wacom stylus and you get a broader, heavier line, as you would with a brush. With some tools you get more or less transparency instead. The stylus for my HTC Flyer does have a hint of pressure sensitivity, but the Flyer stylus is limited as an art tool.

* Note. I've just heard that the S stylus for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note is pressure sensitive. Good news!

A Wacom tablet is a must for professional digital art in Photoshop and sophisticated apps like Painter 12. Hand held tablets, particularly the iPad, win hands-down on convenience.

Pinch-zooming even allows you to produce some impressive artwork on an iPhone or other touch screen phone. But that's another story...

IPAD AND ANDROID TABLETS for drawing, doodling and painting

HOW DO YOU DOODLE on a desktop computer?

The advantage of painting on a hand held tablet is, of course, that it is hand held!

IPAD AND ANDROID TABLETS
for drawing, doodling and painting

HOW DO YOU DOODLE
on a desktop computer?