6 years ago I discovered Exploding Dog (this was my favorite) and had my mind blown by Sam’s simple use of a drawing tablet. I tried my own experiments with a mouse but with lame results. 3 years ago I inherited an ancient Wacom tablet which wasn’t even supported on my computer, but at least I was using a digital pen rather than my standard mouse.

When I began at AWP I borrowed Molly’s super awesome (BIG!) Wacom Intuos3 tablet, which rocked. I used it on two project for the Cornell Cooperative Extension and had a blast. But a few weeks ago I realized that I needed my own (for work, and home) but didn’t want to shell out $300 to get a pressure sensitive hand-drawn tool. I was skeptical when I found the Bamboo and Bamboo Fun, but
read some raves and decided to pick one up.

It has been through a full week of use and I love it. The 4″ x 6″ drawing surface seemed a bit small at first, but I’ve gotten the hang of it. Something to note: I’m not using a tablet for handwriting recognition (not that any computer could recognize my penmanship). The majority of my work with this tablet will likely be in Painter, Illustrator, Photoshop and maybe Flash. I’ll post some example drawings soon.