11 Comments
User's avatar
Pat's avatar

I hope it helps to know you're not alone. I'm not anywhere near your skill set but I am old. I understand and even at times appreciate the capabilities of tech, but I don't trust it and never will. Paper and pen/pencil (and now, sticky notes) rule. I figure I have a much less chance of losing records in a fire than losing everything in a computer crash...

Margreet de Heer's avatar

Yay Morris!

chris eliopoulos's avatar

Spending most of my work life on a Cintiq, just to get me back to why I love drawing--for myself--I've been working analog on a strip and doing cartoon watercolors. There's a form of meditation there. It calms and relaxes me.

When parents ask me what programs and hardware their kids need to start drawing, I tell them a pencil and a piece of paper. The best hardware around.

Roberta McKay's avatar

My biggest upset as a teacher was when the power went out. I had 32 sixth graders for computers with no way to use computers. We would go outside and have a competition of using the spelling words to make letters with our bodies. Fun times. By the way, I love Morris pics. 'Berta

Kyle Beaudette's avatar

I keep trying to get myself to use a pencil for linework, and then either scan it and colour digitally or use coloured pencils or graphite powder etc to shade and colour.

I just keep defaulting back to the same pen after trying anything.

I frustrate myself with how I default back to my comfort zone so quickly unless I'm being very mindful.

David Rickert's avatar

You can't fool me. That pencil is the photo is a Ticonderoga, not a Blackwing.

All kidding aside, I don't know if it was you or someone else who got me hooked on buying different kinds of pencils, but I've accumulated quite a few. I'm a fan of the Eyeball pencils as well, and favor the Golden Bear pencils slightly over the Ticonderogas. The Musgrave Songwriter pencils are good too, but I find that round pencils aren't as comfortable to hold as hexagonals.

At any rate, if I get in a rut drawing it seems like switching pencils is an easy way to get out of it.

Lindel Young's avatar

Pencils are great & so are paints! Pats to Morris & “meow” from Zena!🐾

Jeanne DuPrau's avatar

Blackwing pencils, yes, iPad yes also except that mine is dying and I can't get around to buying a new one. Always enjoy your writings and drawings and interviews and photos of Morris, who is fun to draw.

Jason Chatfield's avatar

Thank you Jeanne! ✏️

Keiko Ichiye's avatar

I love Blackwing! I bought one of their Mystery Boxes (which I highly recommend). It included a black Blackwing T-shirt. Now I look like a fan of some cool, obscure band!

Anathema Addams's avatar

I like to think that the Butlerian Jihad (*) is already underway and riding a heady wave - not of fervor and conviction, but of sheer fatigue.

(* Dune reference for those who don't do science fiction)