Some Graphics Programmes I Have Known

Mary  Kemp - Digital Portrait

In my naivety I thought that I could draw and paint pictures using my trusty computer. Armed with only a Wacon tablet and a very rudimentary knowledge of how it works I could conquer the world of art. After all I am an artist aren't I ?
But it's not easy, after all they do degree courses in graphic design, don't they?
I started off using Photoshop 7, it was on my laptop, I spent a lot of time fiddling with it, and drew a bit, altered scanned images, played with the colour. So time consuming !! Then the laptop died and the next one didn't have Photoshop on, and it was expensive.
So I downloaded Gimp ,http://www.gimp.org/ free to us all, and as far as I can tell nearly as good as Photoshop. I learnt about layers, resizing and a whole lot more, but I still got a wobbly line when drawing on the Wacon tablet.
Then I downloaded Inkscape http://inkscape.org/ which is brilliant for achieving a smooth line. I'm still struggling with saving the images as I want and placing them, it would help if I read the manual...
But when all said and done there's nothing like drawing with a pencil, feeling the rasp against the paper or letting a pool of watercolour spread slowly and luxuriously into another pool of watercolour and just helping it along with a brush.