I'm Learning to Draw... Greetings from Pasig City, Philippines!

[SteveB148]

Hey Steve, drawing from the wrist tends to cause a variety of muscle issues and pains in that area, if you are experiencing similar pains in your shoulder you may be doing too much drawing or painting. The other possibility is that you are keeping the muscles too tense while you are doing it, it takes a bit of time to become accustomed to drawing with the whole arm and shoulder but it tends to be much less likely to cause issues in the long run.

<snip>

Good luck and I hope that helps.

Hi Delofasht,

Thank you for your helpful and informative post . I should have said that my shoulder pain comes from a shoulder injury I sustained. Again I can draw from the shoulder, but it does hurt. Seems like the drawing from the wrist brings it's own problems. I'll try to remember to take breaks.

Cheers,

Steve

[Delofasht]

Steve, you could try painting from the elbow more, locking shoulder and wrist in a fairly comfortable position and focusing on swinging the elbow for most of your strokes. It will yield a nice result for most applications of painting or drawing. Be careful to take the same breaks and stretches though as you can get tendonitis by using the elbow painting a lot, same care with strokes and all. Good luck and sorry to hear about the shoulder injury! (or you could teach yourself to paint with your other arm had a few friends of mine in the past that did that)

[KuyaMarc]

Hello to my thread... I didn't know there was activity until just... I just turned 45 on the 13th... Anyways...

On Tuesday, I had visited a professional video game development studio, here in the Philippines. Their art department is using Wacom Intuos graphics tablets. This was my first time in a digital art studio where I got see the actual posture professional digital artists is using. None of the digital graphic artists experience pain when using their Wacom tablets, however, I don't think the Wacom-brand is the benefactor. I observed the male employee doing "shading" in Photoshop using the Wacom tablet; he wasn't using that much muscles to sketch. In fact, that employee was just relaxing while sketching on his Wacom. His wrist was moving while sketching, but the movement was not that significant. Among combined digital artists groups, totalling 25 employees with Wacom tablets, NONE are experiencing pain while using the Pen. Body postures and distances varied per employee; I am guessing the chair plays a big role as to not have pain while drawing.

Overall, what I was looking for, when I visited a professional video game development studio, was how each employee uses their Wacom tablet without experiencing pain. That is something I can not find in any YouTube video, including the ArtRage specific YouTube video tutorials (hint, hint!).

All of the ArtRage video tutorials only show screenshots, not the body posture of the human making the video tutorial. To me, that is more important, because replicating someone's method using incorrect body posture generally results in body pain of some kind.

Well, I'm prepping up for more ArtRage work next month. I think one of my problems, is I have too many distractions...

[Victor Osaka]

I have a video that might be helpful. Though it is for iPad users. But, it might give you a little insight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHYYY3ORXRA

[Fashmir]

Welcome KuyaMarc! Good to have you here. :-) I am excited for you. Getting into creative hobbies is such a good move! Very stimulating and fulfilling. I think you have come to a good place at these forums too. A lot of friendly people here.

[D Akey]

I have a video that might be helpful. Though it is for iPad users. But, it might give you a little insight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHYYY3ORXRA

The more work I do where I'm actually sitting at a normal height desk, and the older I get, the more the body is upset with how I sit. Thanks for the video. I may raise everything up so I'm standing with a tool keeping me relatively at the same height. But after years of sitting at a desk and paying no attention to my body whatsoever, it's definitely taking its toll on the lower portion of my body. So this was a timely message for me.

Congrats on the Lynda.com thing!

[D Akey]

Hello to my thread... I didn't know there was activity until just... I just turned 45 on the 13th... Anyways...

On Tuesday, I had visited a professional video game development studio, here in the Philippines. Their art department is using Wacom Intuos graphics tablets. This was my first time in a digital art studio where I got see the actual posture professional digital artists is using. None of the digital graphic artists experience pain when using their Wacom tablets, however, I don't think the Wacom-brand is the benefactor. I observed the male employee doing "shading" in Photoshop using the Wacom tablet; he wasn't using that much muscles to sketch. In fact, that employee was just relaxing while sketching on his Wacom. His wrist was moving while sketching, but the movement was not that significant. Among combined digital artists groups, totalling 25 employees with Wacom tablets, NONE are experiencing pain while using the Pen. Body postures and distances varied per employee; I am guessing the chair plays a big role as to not have pain while drawing.

Overall, what I was looking for, when I visited a professional video game development studio, was how each employee uses their Wacom tablet without experiencing pain. That is something I can not find in any YouTube video, including the ArtRage specific YouTube video tutorials (hint, hint!).

All of the ArtRage video tutorials only show screenshots, not the body posture of the human making the video tutorial. To me, that is more important, because replicating someone's method using incorrect body posture generally results in body pain of some kind.

Well, I'm prepping up for more ArtRage work next month. I think one of my problems, is I have too many distractions...

Happy Birthday young fellow! Many happy returns to the day!!!!

[HwyStar]

KuyaMarc: My doctor prescribed this OTC medicine for my hand arthritis: Amazon. Read about the ingredients to make sure you are not allergic to anything in it. My wife is.

He also prescribed me to go to physical therapy for my hands. Doing both the meds and therapy has really cured my hands from the pain I was in. My hand therapist is a real pro. She has taught me the exercises, stretching, and heat/cold techniques that make all the difference in the world. I just started a month ago and I can paint/program/play guitar like I did 10 years ago! See your doctor!

[SteveB148]

Hi All,

Sorry to necro this thread, but I've been away from the forum for a while and just wanted to provides one more piece of feedback. I picked up a DX Racer Iron series computer chair and found it to be incredibly helpful for long periods of time sitting in front of a computer. I have some major medical issues so anything that can help me relieve pain whilst working on the computer is helpful. Hope this helps others.

Regards,

Steve

[Victor Osaka]

Wow. That's some chair!!! It looks very configurable. I have a 1986 Haworth ergonomic chair that I like. But, I have to switch to my wheelchair sometimes. It has that thick gel cushions.