Recently I made two new purchases to add quality and ease to
my life. The verdict is still being weighed about the ease. The first purchase was a one-cup French Press
coffee maker. My son has a large one that he has used for some time. He
insisted I try it and I fell in love with the fresh clean flavor. However, he
uses regular coffee and I use decaf. One of us was always waiting for our turn
to make coffee. Having very little counter space I did not want to buy another
large coffee maker to add to the clutter. An impulse stop at TJ Maxx resulted
in finding the cutest little French Press. (I thought it was so interesting
that I made a drawing of it in my journal.) The good news it is so small it is
hardly noticeable on my counter. The bad news is that it is a pain to clean the
out grounds. Because grounds plug up drains, I put them in my compost bucket. Before
that, I just dropped a coffee filter in the bucket. Now, because the glass is
so narrow I have to use a thin silicone spatula to remove what I can and the
grounds get all over my sink. I keep reminding myself how good the coffee tastes
and that I am not using filters anymore.
The second purchase was a major one. I follow a blog of a super
digital artist, Skip Allen, who teaches Corel Painter classes. Skip uses
a Wacom Tablet, which has a digital pen that works like a brush, etc. I have a
couple of tablets, but they are old models and I rarely use them. Being a
Photoshop enthusiast, I found my mouse sufficient. It seems in order to
get the most out of Corel Painter, a good tablet is a must. I have not
signed up for any classes yet, but I did bite the bullet and bought a new Wacom Intuos 5 tablet. It was a good thing for them that they charged a hefty 16%
restocking fee plus postage to return it (which I did not notice at the time of
purchase), as I would have done it in a heartbeat. It is very tricky for a novice
with poor hand strength and left hand coordination to use. I am making some
progress, but I think the fact that I made a mistake holds me back. I have to try to learn to love it instead of
resenting the money I spent.
The image above was composed of the drawing I did in my
journal. I scanned the page into Photoshop where I used a couple of artistic filters.
Then I opened it in Painter and played with my new tablet to paint over it. I
will probably print it out and glue it in my journal next to the original.
