Ever since I could pick up a pencil or pen as a little kid, I would be drawing. I remember sketching people’s faces from magazines and books and I even used to replicate my baseball cards (front and back) on cardboard that came out of freshly-bought dress shirts.

 

Drawing to me was like entering a candy store with a hankering sweet tooth.

 

It didn’t hurt that I had a father who was a professional artist, who I so desperately wanted to grow up to be. I’d watch his little nuances and styles and do my best to pattern my style after his.

 

I used to doodle in my notebooks while in high school, covering the pages with sketches rather than notes. When an art teacher of mine caught a glimpse of my drawings, he connected me with a two-year college  to get my degree and jumpstart my career.

 

For the next 25+ years, I was in graphic design. Even though I worked in the art field, the kind of things I was doing was pulling me away from the days of pencil and paper. When I first worked as an art director, I would layout catalogs with pen and paper, but when computers entered the picture — the drawing opportunities fell off.

 

I did continue some traditional drawing by doing caricatures (and still do), but that was my only outlet for that type of creative expression. Most of the art I’ve done over the years has been done electronically — drawing pictures on my desktop computer with a mouse as my pencil or pen.

 

Several years ago, I tried using a small drawing board and stylus to capture the days of traditional art on my computer at home, but it never gave me the same feeling of using pencil on paper or brush on canvas.

 

A few months ago, I came upon a video of a Disney©-trained artist who was doing tutorials of electronic cartooning. He was using a Wacom® Cintiq® computer and using his stylus to draw pictures RIGHT ON THE SCREEN!

 

Wow! I always knew the day would come where we could all have desktop, touch-screen computers, but I didn’t know when that would happen. 

 

It’s happened.

 

Immediately I researched the cost of a Cintiq display and stylus the famous artist was using on the videos and it was a 24” wide display and cost somewhere around $2,000 to $3,000. 

(Gulp). 

 

I discovered Cintiq had a 13” version for around $1,000 and began calculating how I could get my hands on this mind-blowing device and stylus.

 

My wife, Terri, wasn’t completely on board with the idea (understandably). She was certain the product would either not live up to my expectations or a new and better product was just around the corner.

 

She always sees this in a practical way. Hmpf.

 

Enter the Apple® Ipad Pro® and pencil.

 

Through even more research on these drawing devices I found out Apple had a 12.9” Ipad Pro for around $900 and an Apple Pencil stylus for $99. My research found that many artists and designers were now leaning towards the Apple products — especially the pencil stylus. I had to find out why.

 

I visited a local Best Buy and with their demo unit, I began playing around with the computer and pencil. The salesmen even offered me a chair so I could sit there and just draw, draw, draw.

 

I was sold! The tablet and stylus worked just like  (even better) than pencil on paper — and charcoal and oil and acrylic and just about any other type of medium. I bought the two devices (with Terri’s approval) and have been using them for weeks now.

 

Best purchase I’ve made in quite a while.

 

It is with such joy I can say I am now back to my old days of just drawing and doodling and having fun. The Ipad and pencil are not exactly like pencil and paper — they’re BETTER! With its layering capabilities, being able to “undo” things and being able to try different things without sacrificing the original content, made the decision to buy absolutely a no-brainer.

 

I am illustrating a book I hope to publish in the near future and am also building up images to create a website promoting my services. If you are an artist looking for a opening to create amazing digital art in an unimaginable way, this is the door to the future.

 

Thank you Apple (and all the electronic geniuses who make devices that astound). I feel like I’m back to using the gifts and talents again that God has bestowed upon me. I feel like the possibilities to my creative side are sky high.

 

And most importantly, I feel like a kid in a candy store again.