iamhef

last week i was given a tablet pc at work (besides my desktop) so that i can test some of the software that i write on it. today i decided to take it home and load opencanvas on it to play around, in lieu of have a wacom writing tablet. i have mixed feelings about it. on the one hand it was very cool to be able to sketch directly into the program; on the other hand it was noticeably to very notably more clumsy than working with pencil and paper.

it seemed that occasionally the stylus lost its on-screen calibration or that the angle i was holding it at caused the cursor to not be where i thought i was drawing. plus the way i hold the stylus sometimes makes it hard to see the cursor (stupid left-handedness). it’s very possible that i just need to adjust. it’s also possible that these problems won’t crop up using a wacom tablet, or that they’ll go away all together using a pencil/paper + scanner for sketching and a tablet for coloring only.

i’ve been practicing piano again in the past few weeks after a couple-year haitus. i’ve been playing the hannon exercises which, surprisingly, are now relaxing to play rather than neurosis-inducing (and while using the metronome, at that!). i’ve also been playing the bach two-part inventions. i had mastered 1 or 2 of these a while back but wasn’t disciplined enough at the time to really practice/learn any others. things seemed to have changed in that regard (for the better).

anyway…. yesterday i broke out the sheet music for claire de lune. sheet music that i had bought a very long time ago, when it was way above my head anyhow. it’s obviously different from the inventions and so is a bit more slow going; but, i was able to play through nearly the entire first page (the easiest part, lol). to be continued…

i finally downloaded opencanvas last night (from portalgraphics.net). i started playing with it this morning and looking through some coloring tutorials (mostly on deviantart.com). most of the tutorials out there assume previous experience with graphic design software, of which, i have none; either that, or they are just purposefully terse.

i had kind of assumed that the calibur of opencanvas tutorials out there would be of the same kind i’ve seen for photoshop and illustrator—especially considering that opencanvas is more “grass roots” and thus, i assumed, would have a stronger community. so far that doesn’t, necessarily, seem the case… nothing great comes easy i guess =P

i’ve also semi-decided that i’m going to-eventually-buy a scanner and a wacom tablet to aid in my digital art exploits.