11:50

Change the Document Setup to Inches to facilitate adding the rectangle.

I think that I need to have that in a separate layer then I can switch its display off when I want to export the picture, either for a screen or for printing.

Add the rectangle at 8.5 inches wide and 6.5 inches wide at 5 point and black with a null fill and centre and middle it.

Start a new layer.

Draw a line with the Pencil Tool to show it is working, delete that line.

Save the file.

William

So, 11:33 am and I am using the computer that has the Affinity software upon it and I have just now downloaded the file that you kindly produced and I have opened it in Affinity Designer and wondering what to do next.

I want to have an A4 landscape document with a rectangle as a guide, the rectangle centred and 8.5 inches wide by 6.5 inches high for compatibility with the picture that I drew with the physical coloured pencils, and so that if I get a print from Viking Virtual Print House then the print will fit well into one of the Tesco A4 frames with a mount that I have so as to produce a finished work of art.

So now to have a look at how to proceed.

William

To draw with the Pencil Tool in Affinity Designer one needs to do a mouse drag in order to draw something.

Doing that conventionally means having downwards pressure on the trackpad, or on the button of an external mouse unit, continually - letting the pressure stop causes the drawing to stop happening.

But if one uses mousekeys /50 to push down the mouse key it stays down until released using a . character. So one can draw with the Pencil Tool without needing to apply the pressure to hold the mouse key down - one can even take one's finger up from the trackpad then go down again without the mouse drag stopping.

I have found using the Pencil Tool much easier and better results too using this method.

Yes, on the numeric keypad.

William

Thank you.

4 downloads so far.

I wonder if some pictures will be posted (I hope so)

William

I tend to do bits of art to explore a concept. So, here, I worked through drawing a picture using an adapted frame as a solid drawing pad then framing the resulting picture. Doing another picture could be good, but it is using the same concept again.

I think that the next stage is to try to draw a similar picture in Affinity Designer using the same colour palette as for the picture that I drew with the twelve colour pencil set. That will involve me setting up the colours in Affinity Designer, but I want to try to do it by making a palette that can be used in various drawings, so I need to learn how to do that. Doing it as a vector drawing so that it could be printed out huge (in my dreams!)

Though one never knows. In 2004 or thereabouts I produced the following A3 PDF document. I thought it would probably never get printed out full size. Now I have prints of it at A3 sze on 350 gsm paper that cost me under 60p each. Only a few copies, no minimum quantity that would be way beyond what I need.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/drawing2.PDF

William

An interesting and delightful result of having been doing stuff with desktop publishing software for many years is the way that later developments have interacted with things that had been done years before when the available facilities were not as they later developed.

For example, the following PDF document that I produced about twenty years ago,

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/drawing2.PDF

an A3 size picture. At the time I thought it would perhaps never be printed at an A3 size.

In 2022 I bought five prints, printed A3 on 350 gsm paper (like thin card) by Viking Virtual Print House.

Anyway, writing about drawing in white on red paper I later remembered that many years ago, perhaps 2002 even, using the Softy program, I included in a font some drawings and I remember trying them out as white text on a red background, just electronic files.

So, as things have developed I am thinking that I can try to obtain some A3 landscape prints of the drawings in perhaps a white colour that is not (r, g, b) = (255, 255, 255) upon a red background that is not (r, g, b) = (255, 0, 0). A softer look.

The artwork in the early font got copied into a later font made using FontCreator.

The drawings are in the Private Use Area of the Quest text font, somewhere around U+E700.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/fonts.htm

Surprise, looking down that web page I found this A3 PDF document.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/quest4.pdf

William

I have never been able to copy text from a post in your forum.

William

I have never tried drawing with a white pencil.

I suppose that drawing in white on red paper could give a stylish result.

I wonder if Bing Chat AI can produce coloured pencil drawings.

Ah, I wonder what would be produced if Bing Chat AI is asked to produce a coloured pencil drawing and is prompted with the description that I wrote yesterday of what I had drawn with coloured pencils.

I need to copy what I wrote yesterday!

William

On

https://www.staedtler.com/uk/en/product … l-185-c12/

the colours are listed on tooltips on the palette at the right of the page but not in box order

yet

the colours are listed in box order on the palette at the left of the web page but no tooltips.

William

Thank you.

William