Tools Are Not Talent

This was one of my favorite quotes when I had offices and cubicles - I had a little piece of paper with this on, and I stuck it up wherever I happened to be working. I still have the paper somewhere.

Interesting realization lately, though - for all the time I've spent using computers to do neato things like communicate with people and sell stuff and make websites and distribute cartoons and email and tweet and all of it, I don't create anything good on the computer.

No, really. I used to think that I could make just the cutest, most fabulous, airbrushed, drop-shadowed, icon-ey, tasty characters on the computer. Just look at all that software! It can do anything! It can make stuff 3-D! It can animate! I mean, what's not to love?

What's not to love is any art I make on there. Bleh. My brain just doesn't work the same way with a screen as it does with paper.

When I am drawing, I should be nowhere near the mouse. There must be a pencil, or a Sharpie, or a brush. No pixels. I just don't make good work with pixels.

Oh, I've re-drawn cartoons before so they could be blown up to a big size or put in a particular format, but that's it. I must draw first, then scan stuff in. This the way things are.

Drawing tablet? Got one. Doesn't help.

So, the moral of this story is, computers don't solve everything. And if you are trying to create, even if you are writing, maybe you need to spend some time with a pad of paper, or some chalk, or something that engages your mind differently than pixels. It really is different. Just because computers can replicate things like typing, doesn't mean your brain thinks it's the same. Think about it.

Find the right tools for your talent.