This Ben Shahn-like drawing was just a quick doodle. I like it because of its expressive brushy lines, but it was not drawn with a brush. This was drawn digitally, with a Wacom tablet, using a Creaturehouse EXPRESSION, a wonderful vector program that was bought by Microsoft and turned into a component of Windows-only website building software suite. Microsoft discontinued the product a couple of years or so ago, but I can only use the original software, which was compatible with Macs. The program has its own complement of prepackaged brushes, as expected, but one could make marks on paper with pen, brush, ink drops, etc., then scan them in and use them to make unique vector brushes that were responsive to pressure sensitivity, allowing for variability of line weight. This was drawn with a brush I made. The program was much cheaper than Illustrator or equivalent programs, and was far easier to use out of the box, very intuitive, and far more conducive to making expressive, "natural" drawings. It didn't have, perhaps, the "power" of Illustrator, but it was the better tool for simulating natural media, but with the advantages of vector capabilities. (The two cartoons in my post "Harry Potter Conquers The Universe" were drawn with EXPRESSION, over scanned in pencil underdrawings.)
Will anyone rescue EXPRESSION from the digital grave?
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