The reason I have purchased a Wacom is that students keep asking me to teach them how to use theirs! When Fran, an excellent student from Visual Literacy - a Course In Drawing, was having enormous success using hers, I finally managed to pluck up the energy to go off hunting one down.
This is a picture of Fran's friend, Marion. I think Fran is interesting - she has so much to say - and I will ask her whether she might drop into these boards and talk to you soon.
I was resistant to the idea of getting a Wacom.
What is this thing, I asked myself? I like the feeling of a pencil on a page. I don't want to give that up! Art materials have always been like candies to me. You know what it is like when you walk into a candy store and see all those colours? I even dream about expensive art materials and the day that I will be able to buy them. So why would I buy a piece of equipment that does away with the need for all of this?
Well, the short answer is that the Wacom Graphire tablet doesn't actually do away with the need to draw! It is a tool that greatly enhances the experience of learning to draw and it is a device that helps students when they are learning art online.
In my new course, Action Kids Art Activities (coming soon), I have used the Wacom Graphire to talk to you about the stages of tracing pictures. We do this to experiment with aspects of drawing, such as foreshortening. The most adventurous part of the course are the times when we go on fun investigations! We hunt down photos of tricky things to draw. After taking the digital photos, the students print them off and tape them to the window with a page across the top. The act of tracing helps the student understand how placement and proportion works. Once he or she has practiced and feels comfortable with ideas like foreshortening, it is time to draw unaided. A Wacom tablet takes some of the steps out of the process. Instead, you take the photo with the digital and then transfer it into the Painter Creator and away you go. Saves getting tack from the tape on the window. Here is an example.
But, the kids will still need to experience drawing to be able to use one.
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