I have been drawing vector artwork in Adobe Illustrator since 2006 and I love the ability to draw directly in vector and edit the shapes as well as reuse them many different ways in my patterns and illustrations.

 I get asked a lot which digital drawing tools I use and why. So, here are my recommendations that worked very well for me over more than a decade. 

Professional level digital drawing tablet I use now:

Wacom Intuos Pro Medium. I have tried many tablets over the years and always came back to this one.

I even had their much more expensive tablet with a screen Wacom Cintiq for a while, but it was giving me shoulder pain, so I switched back to Intuos.

I love it that it works great with Adobe Illustrator and that I can hide it under my screen (I got this screen riser for my monitor so that I can slide my tablet under it and slide it out whenever I need to draw).

I did not have any issues with the tips of the pen erasing too quickly. Have been loving my Wacom Intuos for years.

What do I recommend if you are just starting out and need a cheaper alternative?

I myself started out with a cheaper Wacom Bamboo, now it’s called Wacom Intuos Wireless Graphics Drawing Tablet. It has fewer buttons to customize your workflow and is a smaller size. However, it’s a good way to start.

Can you start without a digital drawing tablet?

Yes, you can try your hand creating vector elements that are very simple and then combining them into more complex shapes. Try stars, dots, triangles, hearts. Use these elements in your first vector repeat patterns.

Pretty soon, though, you will want to create your own, unique drawings and vectorize your sketches so that you can create your own style of art and design. For this, a digital tablet will save you lots of time and effort. It is a very enjoyable way to create art on the computer, not only vector but also raster graphics (in Photoshop, for example).

I hope that my recommendations will help you to figure out the best tool for your stage.

If you want to see all of the tools I use in my textile design home studio, please check out this blog post.

Grow, love, create!