I've been using my ipad for art ever since iPads appeared, but for just as long, I have wished for a bigger art pad. This is now in my hands, the ipad pro. How does it feel? Just even more normal than the one I already have, what I now call in my mind, the little one. It's about time!
With the last ipad I designated for just art, I made the mistake of getting the one with a white, rather than black frame, leaving me with the constant distraction of all that light all around when I used it. So now my ipad pro has the black frame, such a relief.
I just had to try the stylus pencil thingy because people were insisting it was better than finger painting. I have long felt skeptical of going back to writing and drawing with a stick. I have been cultivating the use of my non dominant hand by drawing on my ipad, in fact, and I have reached the point that I now frequently draw with my non dominant hand at the same time as the other, or even only with it, if the dominant hand is not convenient just then. It is especially easy for Lefty to draw since it did not also have to learn to hold a stylus.
(Above and below, details from the page of doodles in the first picture)
I feel my brain wiring itself in new and fun ways, more integrated. My drawing style has gotten far freer and looser as I have relaxed into infinite canvas and paint. So it is with a bit of trepidation that I approach the do-hickey plug in pencil unit. At first it feels ungentle. I fear scratching my screen. Soon I notice that even a gentle sweep works with some drawing apps and brushes. I carefully compare the detail I can get with my finger drawing using pinch magnifying, with the pencil dealy. I already can get to the resolution of the individual pixel with finger pinch and paint.
So what is the benefit of the scratch stick? Well, two things. It turns out, even as I was busy forgetting how to use a paintbrush or carry a pen, my dominant had hand brain retained a fine memory of its previous skills. As soon as the electric pencil was in my eager little boss hand, the old powers begin once again to flow.
There is also the massive benefit of actually seeing in real time what I am trying to draw. This is a compromise I hardly remember making way back lo, these not even a handful years but seems like an entire era ago; that is you can't really see under the big stubby finger as you draw. Even though you can pinch it down to the pixel level. I noticed that while it was worth it to get the amazing extra powers contained in art apps like fill, and sample colors, and using photos and even photos of my paper art, I was not drawing at the level of detail in my former paper drawings.
And the early stylii were no better, in fact they were worse. They dragged along on bendy felt like tips that weren't very responsive and lagged. But this...
This thing I like. It is pointy and easy to see around, and fast. And the detail level is, in fact also better, though just a little bit. Combined with the extra screen size and speed of the pro, the pencil is indeed interesting. I wonder how it would feel to make a pencil sketch on paper compared to "pencil" sketch on "paper". So, I decide to give it a try....
“We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.” -G.K. Chesterton
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