I know. I did it again. Hurt my back. That’s what happens when you carry around a well trained pug for about three hours to keep her from peeing. She refused to pee while I held her, however her good training doesn’t extend to the occasional wiggle which wrenched my back into pain city.
The pug is fine. I on the other hand, am in pain again. I, pretty much shut down when I’m in pain. I spend the hours doing an activity to keep my mind of the pain. I can’t get pain meds like other people seem to be able to do. Doctors refuse to prescribe more than a few at a time and won’t refill the prescription. So when this happens I’m usually out and out of luck. Based on past performance I bet I could break a leg, be given one aspirin and told to deal with it until it heals. I’m not kidding. If you know some of my history with kidney stones, you know that doctors don’t care if I’m in pain.
So I’ve developed coping mechanisms. It’s why I learned to knit and spin. I also paint when I’m in pain. Not minis, that is not something I can do when I’m in pain, it takes too much precision. In fact, the painting I do doesn’t include actual paint. After all, a spasm could mean paint across the room. And I’m usually not in a position where liquid is easily used. Here’s where the computer comes in.
I first got to paint on a computer in elementary school. They had gotten hold of one of the first tablets and I got to play with it. When I repeated the 8th grade (not because I failed, it’s a long stupid story) one of the classes I had to take again was a required computer class. Since I had passed with an A the last year, the librarian who taught the class gave me license to spend the entire semester painting on the one Mac in the corner while others had to spend time learning about ram and rom. Our old DOS based Magnivox had a painting program that I would spend hours on.
When college came around I had access to technology including 3d labs, art labs and other nifty bits I never would have known about. I spent a lot of time playing in 3d and 2d art creation during college and after. I’m not very talented as an artist but I love doing it. Eventually I found Painter.
I love Painter. It lets me use real media digitally. I can paint and draw with anything, using any color. I got a chance to get a Wacom tablet and worked with those for years. Then I got my first Tablet PC and never looked back.
Now I have a Surface. It’s pretty amazing. My Tmt2 from HP was good, but was barely adequate compared to this machine. I can draw right on the screen, not worry about my hand and it feels like I’m using a real brush or pencil.
And when I’m sick or hurt myself, I can lay in bed and curl up with this tablet then just paint away.
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