Rant: Sketching on paper vs. drawing on a tablet just feels different now

I used to sit with a stack of tracing paper and a 2H pencil for hours, mapping out seams and drapes by hand in my little studio in Portland... Then I switched to a secondhand iPad and Procreate about two years ago when my wrist started bothering me after long nights. Now I fly through revisions but I feel like I lost that raw, tactile connection to the fabric... does anyone else feel like digital tools took something subtle away from your design process?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_cameron3h ago

The tool talks back to you" is exactly right, and I notice this same thing everywhere now. People trade their manual typewriter for a laptop and their writing gets cleaner but loses all that stumble-and-fix personality that made it interesting. We're trading conversation for precision and I'm not sure it's always a good trade.

milesbarnes5h ago

Have you ever watched someone switch tools and then just... lose something in their work? My friend Julia was a fashion illustrator for years, did everything in charcoal and watercolor. She got a grant for a fancy Wacom setup and tried to go fully digital. About six months in she showed me a piece and it was technically perfect but flat, no life in the drapes. She ended up keeping the tablet for rough drafts but goes back to paper for the final linework. Something about that resistance of the pencil on paper... it's like the tool talks back to you in a way a screen just can't.