How to Use a Drawing Tablet

On today's episode of tablets with

drawings on them, we are looking at the

Rosetta Stone. No, stop!

It's drawing tablets we're looking at,

drawing tablets today. Come again? Little

flat things, come with a pen, you plug

them into a computer, you could draw with

them… You're going to be giving people

some tips on how to use one, like for

beginners. Do I look like the sort of

person who gives tips? Tell you what, I'll

do you a solid. Why don't you let me host

this episode, and you can go back to

looking at your old rocks? Old rocks? And

I… what is this? I did not approve this…

This is a drawing tablet. They come in

different sizes, from different

manufacturers. And they're often chosen

by new artists who are just getting

their feet wet in digital art, because

they tend to be cheaper, and are a great

entry point .The downside to one of these

is they also tend to have a steeper

learning curve than say a drawing tablet

with a screen. So we're here today to get

you up the ladder of learning faster. I'm

coming down! When did we get a budget for

a ladder? I'm drawing in Photoshop here

but you can use any drawing app that you

like. I have a list of five really good

ones that are free. You can check that

out when you're done watching this video.

Link that down below in the description.

On your tablet, you will see some marks.

These show your live area. This is the

area where you can draw, and the live

area maps to your computer's screen. If

you tap your pen up here in the corner,

your cursor will show up here in the

corner on your screen. Tap down here.

it'll show up down here. Of course,

dragging your pen across the screen will

leave a mark. That's called Drawing! Yeah.

I am aware of that. If you're new to one

of these, your main goal should be

getting used to using it. Your first time

jumping in is just not gonna feel as

natural as it does when you're drawing

on paper. This is an adjustment,. Everybody

goes through it. So if you start drawing

and you feel like you don't have full

control, You Are Not Alone. It does take

some time to settle in, so get ready to

practice using this every single day.

Your first goal should be getting used

to how wide the live area of your tablet

is. So take your stylus in your hand and

tap on a tool or part of the screen

that's in the upper left hand corner.

Then move your cursor down over to the

right lower corner and tap again. Then

move to the lower left corner and tap

again. Then to the upper right corner and

tap again. The first time you do this, you

probably aren't going to be moving

really fast. Like I said, you are just

getting used to the screen and how your

pen maps to it. But I want you to do this

several times: upper left, lower right,

lower left, upper right. Each time you do

it, I want you to try to do it a little

bit faster. I want you to speed up. Your

hand is going to get used to moving

across that space, and understanding

where it needs to be to hit the various

parts of your screen. Now, once you feel

comfortable moving around the screen a

little bit, I want you to practice

something similar, but on the canvas.

First of all, let's go to the upper left

hand corner of that canvas and let's

draw a small circle, not too close to the

edge. Then draw one in the lower right

corner. Move over to the lower left and

draw another one. Then in the upper right,

and draw your circle again. We are going

to do what we did before, but instead of

speeding up, what I want you to do is try

drawing another circle around the

circles you've already drawn, and just

move from one to the other and to the

other. You're getting the hang of this! If

you'd like, you can keep going and draw

even larger circles around those. This is

a great warm-up activity. Another thing

you can try doing is practicing

connecting lines between those circles.

Take your pen and draw a line from the

center of one of those circles to the

center of another one of those circles.

Pick your pen up go to another area and

connect another line. As you get used to

it, you can try speeding up these lines

and seeing if you can draw them faster

and still stay accurate This has been

another edition of Things to Practice!

We're not actually done practicing! I

have more. If you learn through these

kind of hands-on practice exercises,

check out bradsartschool.com. I have a

brand spanking new Digital Art for

Beginners course where we get some

hands-on time with homework and all

sorts of projects. It's built for

beginners to be an on-ramp to some of

the more advanced drawing courses and

tutorials out there. Check out the

details on my site. Now back to the video.

Okay, you want another practice tip?

Okay, enough of the singing! We're moving

on now. One of the great benefits to a

tablet like this is pen pressure. The

harder you press with your pen, the wider

or darker your stroke gets, depending on

the type of paint brush you're using.

Bust open your favorite drawing app and

grab a brush you like. The one I have

here changes sizes based on how hard I

press on my tablet. Now I'm gonna make it

bigger than what I think I need, probably

like 30 or 40 pixels. Now when I hover in

Photoshop I can see how big that brush

is going to be if I applied all of my

pressure on my tablet. It is showing me

my brush cursor on the screen. What I

want to do with this, is I want to get

used to drawing lightly. I'm going to

start by drawing a line across the top

of the page as light as I can. Then I'm

going to draw another line, but this time

I'm gonna apply just a little bit more

pressure. And then I'm gonna do it again,

this time with a little more pressure.

The goal is to see how many lines I can

draw before I completely max out the

pressure of the pen. Now, the first time

you do do this, you may only get three or

four lines before you max out that brush.

That's totally normal. What your goal for

this exercise should be is to get as

many different widths of lines across

your page as possible. It's harder than

it looks because sometimes as you cross

the page you're just gonna naturally

apply more pressure. That's okay. All

practice is good practice, and you're

just trying to get a feel for the pen.

Oh, I know that noise! It's the question

giraffe. We're gonna answer a question

from someone in the audience. Help! My

tablet won't work. I've installed it I

have to pet pressure. I hate everything!

P.S. Do you like roller coasters? You can't

handle them! Yes I can! I love roller

coasters! Okay, so I got your back, Dr.

Octopus for life, I have installed a lot

of graphics tablets over the years, and

it's, it's not a hard process. Since

you've already installed your tablet and

it's not working properly, my first step

would be to uninstall the software and

then reboot your computer. I know, often

when a tech person tells you to reboot,

they're wasting your time. Um, sir, have

you tried rebooting your router? I just

want you to tell me if the network in my

area is down first. But this time, you

really do need to reboot your computer

after installing and uninstalling. Now

that your software is uninstalled, you've

rebooted, hook up your tablet to your

computer and reinstall the software. Then—

Yes, here we go again—I want you to

reboot a second time. Now test out your

tablet. Still not working? Try out a few

different drawing apps that you might

have that have pen pressure. Again, this

is where having one or two free drawing

apps installed on your computer comes in

really handy. Sometimes it's just one app

that's having a problem, and that really

will help you troubleshoot. In that case,

you can Google "Krita no pen pressure" and

folks can help you find your way.

Sometimes it's as easy as installing

another driver. Sometimes it's just

playing with the settings of the app

itself. Ooh, it's time for the rapid fire

round! I have some more tips for getting

used to your new tablet, and we're going

to be going through them lightning fast.

Are you ready? Too bad! One: Try ditching

your mouse. Technically, this pen is just

a fancy mouse. It could do everything

that your mouse can do. So try just using

this for everyday computing activities

with your pen instead of your trackpad

or your mouse. Surfing the web, checking

your email, editing a document, designing

ransom notes. Use that pen. Number two:

Grab a photo of a sketch and try drawing

over it for practice. This is a great way

to get used to drawing on your tablet.

You could do line art, or a sketch, whatever

you want to do. Just practice with it,

Number three: Undo is your friend. Well, hi,

friend! If you get a line wrong, just

cntl-Z it and try again. Number four:

If you have two screens, you can use your

tablet across both. This will also take

some getting used to, and you might not

want to draw when you're set up that way.

But it will help you ditch your mouse.

Number five: Try playing some video games

with your tablet. I mean, I wouldn't

recommend playing Elden Ring with this

thing, but there are some games designed

specifically for graphics tablets. The

most popular one out there is called osu!

It's a rhythm game, and it's a really

great way to build eye hand coordination

Number six, last tip: Put those shortcut

keys to use. Many of these tablets have

shortcut keys and you could go into the

settings and change those keys to

anything you want set it to undo change

your brush size zoom in and out force

quit Chrome constantly accidentally

whatever okay I hoped all of this was

helpful for those of you who have been

using your tablets for a while what

helped you learn let me know Down Below

in the comments thank you all for

watching and I'll talk to you in a

couple of days

foreign

[Music]