Drawing Dilemma

I've been drawing my little heart out since I got back from Cleveland. I wrote a Beading Daily post that required illustrations and also have been working on handouts for my classes at Studio Beads in Chicago next week.

I rely on all those years of art school to do my drawings. My technique is to draw the beads HUGE, then reduce them on the sheets to consolidate the color and line. They turn out okay, but one of these days I'm going to need to learn computer graphics--they're just so much more clean, clear, and printable.

I updated my status on Facebook yesterday, asking if anyone had recommendations for computer graphic drawing programs, and I received all kinds of great ideas. Here's what my friends suggested--I thought you might benefit, too:

"I use Corel Draw, but if I had to do it again I'd use Adobe Illustrator, although it's expensive. I was able to buy an educators version of Corel on Amazon very inexpensively, not sure if that is available for Illustrator. I can manage simple shapes with Word or with Powerpoint, but you miss some of the important functionality like rotating around a center, blending along a path and step and repeat, very handy. Perhaps there should be a course on drawing beads...."

"I know only Photoshop, it's good for me."

"Check your other photo-editing software, most of them have extensive drawing ability. I have tried a few. Let me know if you'd like a list with comments."

"Adobe Illustrator for drawing, Photoshop for images. My 2 cents: don't mess around with the cheaper stuff."

"I tend to use photos for my class handouts, but Illustrator works well for diagrams, though it has a learning curve. If you qualify for an educators discount, that may make it more affordable."

"I agree on Illustrator. It looks scary to a beginner but is worth the effort to learn. Adobe offers tons of free tutorials, the user base is huge so lots of people you can beg help from. If you do classes for a local high school or community college, you may be able to get the software from them for free."

"No. You don't have to, I just bought a software CD called Line Form from Apple, that is so good, you could do anything what you want!! I love it!!"

"...Photoshop for raster, Illustrator for vector, and at your level of knowledge don't mess with anything else. You'll just have to shift later. They are expensive, but least expensive if bought as part of one of the Creative Suites (which would give you other software you'd find essential, too). They are not easy programs. They are ... SOOO worthwhile. I like Lynda.com tutorials, and you can access a lot of the intro lessons for free while you decide whether to sign up (month by month, if you want)or not."

"Try this website. It's a little complicated but it works. Hope this helps."

This last one--inkscape--looks pretty promising (and free!). I may just give it a whirl to see if I can do it. If the meantime, the good old pen and pencil drawings will have to do!