iPad drawings vs charcoal…

I’m a purist when it comes to preparatory sketches. I’ve relied on charcoal and drawing paper to work out the details (usually, to eliminate the details) of a composition before starting a painting. But charcoal is messy–a trait I love about it. But that trait doesn’t make it the easiest medium to work with when sketching spontaneously from my car, or in a hotel room on my son’s baseball away games (this post is being written in Hamden, CT, in a hotel room, between tournament games).

Lately I’ve found the iPad–amazing as it is in all respects–to be an amazing drawing tool. It’s about the size of a 6 x 8 sketch book, and can be drawn on vertically or horizontally. I use Bamboo Papers, a drawing and notes app that’s pretty basic, but very true to the art of drawing. The tools are few, but the sketch quality is near that of  pencil-on-paper. Given the option, I’ll always choose charcoal and paper over the iPad, but having found it to be a great alternative, has allowed me to draw when I otherwise wouldn’t have. You can check out Bamboo Papers here.