Digital On-Location Sketching

The Samsung Galaxy Note smartphone is so far the only available mobile unit that has an active Wacom digitizer system with a pen stylus, and it was this feature that I got it with an unlimited data subscription. I've always imagined something like this would come out a decade ago. Creating pictures with it skips the paper process, and thereby you can share it instantly.

Although I still believe that creating art in traditional mediums cannot be replaced by the digital medium. Sketching on paper is a sort of instant print where mistakes can happen. Those mistakes has humbled me and kept me learning to doing it right the first try of whatever it is I'm sketching. In one of the sketching application I use on the Note, layers can be implemented, and of course erasures and "digital paper" are virtually unlimited. Not happy with the first try? You can easily switch to a bank sheet. Somehow, this is the trap you can find yourself in if you have not been working with sketching "on paper". Format is currently limited to a 3:4 or 3:5 ratio, and I can't do a long panoramic format that I've learned to love doing with a Japanese Fold sketchbook.

Here are some of my sketches using the Galaxy Note on mostly food, preferably when I eat alone since 10 minutes of waiting before eating what's in front of you is pretty long for a companion.

The Galaxy Note is about 1/4 of an A4 paper, and 10mm thick. It comes with a Wacom S Pen  that slides inside the  Galaxy Note. Here though, I managed to get the S Pen holder accessory which makes it weigh and feel like a full metal pen 

The discipline of just sketching fast without erasures (much) from the medium pen on paper has taught me to get it done fast the first time.

The S Memo default app for sketching come with simulated brush, pen, pencil and translucent marker tools, and you can adjust the sizes of the tips. You can also have virtually any color hue you can pick on its palette  

It helps that the Note has a hi-res 800 by 1280 screen pixel so that you can do finer sketches

The Wacom S Pen that comes with the Note has levels of sensitivity that translates for pen width variance just like a pencil. This makes it quite a likable natural tool.