The Graphic Table

When the day is over, I love nothing more than sliding the books off the desk and plugging my graphic tablet in.  The WACOM graphics tablet is an art tool designed  to digitalize animation, mimic signatures, trace and edit common-place graphics.  With a pressure-sensitive pad reacting to electromagnetic waves from a battery-independent pen, the tablet acts as a sketchpad, allowing the artist to draw and project images into a computer screen.  With a little patience and plenty of practice, achieving a professional quality in animation is no longer a niche for the Big Screens.
I adore my tablet. It turned a quiet hobby into a full-blown obsession. Comics, cartoons, landscape, wall paper designs, and maybe a paid commission here and there--the tablet revolutionized the art of “doodling“. I’ll admit I’m not particularly talented--a career in art isn’t my goal-- but using a tablet, I can achieve a cinema-like quality in less time it took you to read this essay. It isn’t a new gadget either. I remember my elementary school teacher doodling over a prehistoric prototype and watching a pixilated version of his “dog” over the projector. So it’s safe to assume the tablet’s been around since forever.
But I love drawing. And  more than I love drawing, is drawing well, which means wasting entire afternoons with a graphite-less pen in my hand, watching a simple sketch turn into a breathtaking fantasy. And I’m not the only one. Entire websites, such as Tegaki e and Livestream  are dedicated to bringing  the graphic-design community together, regardless of artistic backgrounds and level of skill. Typed comments a la Facebook? Overrated.  A sketch of your very expressive “Oh my god” face will suffice.
Its practicality is alluring. The way a writer drafts, a person can daft their art and improve by redrawing over a layer on top of the original picture. Unlike a sketchpad, redrawing can be achieved with 100% accuracy, without wasting a single piece of paper. The tablet allows the blooming artist to practice while still feeding his or hers eco-friendly inner hippy. And when the piece is done, advertising art and selling online is simple. All that needs to be done is upload on the many thousands online communities dedicated to art and buyers, sometimes even attracting potential employers.  For someone with a knack for doodling, the tablet is the perfect tool.