today I was using my brand new drafting table (yay!) when a friend made a comment on how it was weird how high I had it.

Personally, I find it the most comfortable to have a table at about chest height with the back of the table raise about 3 inches above that. I never thought about it being weird, it's just comfortable.

How about y'all? What is the most comfortable?

My head has to be on the table. The position for 'sleeping in class'

I sit in my chair with my knees tucked up to my chest and my tablet directly in front of me. I don't really know why I sit this way, probably because I'm so short that my feet don't touch the ground if I put them down anyway, so I don't really bother. =D

When I draw, I have to lay on the floor to draw due to lack of space and money.
Most comfy posistion is laying on my stomach, saves pains on my back.

But true comfy posistion is a table as chest hight.

I like having a nice recliner chair to work from, but I'm thinking of setting up a fancy professional drafting table with one of those rolling chairs.

I used to draw in my recliner. I'd have one knee up and a clipboard with the current page braced on it, but after a while that started to make my back sore, so I bought a drafting table. The bottom of the table is roughly in line with the base of my sternum and tilted at 30 degrees or so. Maybe less, I can't really eyeball angles that well. Now that I have the table set up I can lay out my script (if I wrote one, a lot of the time I don't) and any previous pages that I want to use for reference. There's usually extra room for a reference book, as well (usually Ultramodern Firearms, sometimes other stuff).

Let's see . . . in the early 1970s I got comfortable with an antique style drafting desk set up about the way you have yours set up kiandranishan; well, that is, with the lower and nearest edge about level with my sternum. These drafting tables were non-adjustable angles for both junior high and high school drafting classes. You had to get a different height chair - if you could find one - to raise or lower the work area surface.

Those days were the first and only times I ever used technically correct heights and angle setups for doing any sort of artwork. Afterwards I sketched anywhere, everywhere, and in any angle and height set up that I found myself at the time, quite happily adapting to the work-site rather that fiddling with things - even when fiddling was possible - to adjust things to my personal preferences. None of which from first to last - I'd like to note for the record - seemed to make one iota of difference in my art work quality or even in my comfort level.

All of which makes me wonder if any of it really makes much of a difference to the average, at least moderately healthy, artist.

While I like having my art pad set for at least three inches of incline from front to back, I can and will work with the pad perfectly flat if that's the nature of the area I find myself working in. The only height caveat I have is that due to my terrible myopia I rather need to get my faulty orbs relatively close to the drawing surface nowadays.

My favorite sketching position is flat on my back in bed - because that's often when and where I do my primo-level thinking. I need to be vertical, though, to do anything resembling fine and accurate line work though.

I know that this is waaaay more than you were asking for, but I was feeling chatty this morning.

the paper that i'm drawing on has to be at a 45 degree angle to the left.
and the table has to be low. so i can work my slouching action.

The typical, uninteresting sitting position on a standard writing work desk. Except when I'm at home, and I draw crosslegged with my pad on my lap.

Same as Tantz at home: with clipboard/paper in lap with legs crossed. Must have music, too!

I usually sit with my knees drawn up and my drawing pad resting on my knees - when I use pencil and paper, that is. When painting, I've got this nifty table-top easel, and when doing the majority of my comic work, I've got my lovely cintiq - which I keep at 70 degree angle, or so.

wow, more responses than I expected...lol

dueeast
Must have music, too!

Amen! I have to have music to draw, even if I'm the one singing...lol

kiandranishan
wow, more responses than I expected...lol

dueeast
Must have music, too!

Amen! I have to have music to draw, even if I'm the one singing...lol

I can't do ANYTHING without music. I can't write, I can't draw - nothing. I've been seriously crippled for a few days now, since I changed computers and haven't been able to get everything up and running yet.

I like sitting on a couch or on my bed (with my back propped up against lots of pillows)... legs crossed or stretched out, pillow atop that as a makeshift tabletop, sketchbook atop that.

I like to be able to switch positions a lot. I use that one the most, but then I switch to laying, or move over to the poker table next to my bed... but lazy positions are best.

Of course, when drawing in such a manner, my chunk of masonite board is my best friend. I use the computer in the same way.

I'm not really picky with where I am. I can sit with a clip board, or I can work at a desk. Sometimes, I lie on my stomach and draw on my bed.

I have a desk in my room, and I usually sit on a stool and draw like that... but sometimes I'll get a hard book or something, sit in a chair and draw away.

I have a desk which I only use for drawing with my tablet. I have to be sitting with my legs and feet on the chair switching positions everynow and then. I don't like my feet touching the ground when I'm at my desk or any chair for that matter. If I draw on anything else,I have to have my head on the table sorta looking at the paper from a side angle or leaned over it to the point of where I form a sort of canopy of hair over the page, like I do when I draw on my bed.

This is a funny topic for me, because I want to tell you younglings that you will be surprised at how your favorite drawing posture will change as you age!

When I was a young kid, I used to sprawl on the floor on my stomach to draw. My local town did a story on me when I was twelve, and the picture they took of me drawing, I was lying on my stomach my striped socked feet up in the air. When I was an older kid, (teenager-20's... O-kay that's a 'kid' to me) I used to sit on the floor, back against a wall, with my drawing stuff on my knees about six inches from my face. I would sit like that for hours. I had a drafting table, but rarely used it- if I did, I set it up just like kiandra- chest height, with the top elevated slightly.

Then age creeps in. You've probably heard your parents gripe about this, but it's ALL TRUE. First, I couldn't sit on the floor for eight hours, then I couldn't for six, and eventually, sitting on the floor at all became uncomfortable. Then impossible. CREEEEEAAKK ^_^!

Then there's the eyes. -.- I ALWAYS drew with my art really close to my face. I wasn't nearsighted, I just wanted to see the detail. And I could look at things from six inches away with no problem.

About a year ago, I noticed that my line work was getting really sloppy, and I couldn't figure out why. After a few months, I discovered the terrible, awful truth. I was becoming far-sighted. My better than perfect Chuck Yeager 20/15 vision was failing me. When I gave in out of necessity and bought myself a pair of readers, I thought my kids would die laughing. MOM IS OLD!!!

Yeah, but at least I can SEE now!!!

~B

I like hunching over, ruining my back, makes all the better when i see the finished product.

I draw sitting up fairly straight at my desk with my Wacom screen at about 15 degrees... you can see my setup here in the tutorial section ... mind you the screen is usually at less of an upright angle (I had it up for the camera viewpoint).

Sitting in a lotus potition, with a desk on somewhere between chest and stomach, and a pile filled with many things, like books, paper, and other random stuff. Also lying on the back in a bed is very comfortable.

drawing posistion!?!?!

heh i have rituals when it comes to that. as far as actual body positioning goes it doesnt really matter but my back is usually always hunched in some kind of "c" shape. but its not the posistioning that really changes anything, (i got used to drawing everywhere subway,class, standing whatever) its really the enviroment i gotta set up

usually i start with dimming the lights, lighting a few candles and turning on the good ol' frank sinatra..... ok so that was a joke. really i just set up everything i need within reaching distance and if i caant reaach it... theres a SERIOUS problem. so im forced to create a checklist (cigarettes, ashtrey, pencils, paper,food, laptop, stereo remote all that good stuff)

mind you this is more of what i do when im going for one of my "work for 9 hours straight" routines, when im just goofin around in my sketchbook anyplace and any position is good as long as my right hand can reach the paper.

Fetal.

I can't do ANYTHING without music. I can't write, I can't draw - nothing.

Same here. Usually when I draw, I like listening to electronica/trance music.

I like drawing naked. I don't know why. ...Maybe it helps me connect to my character? I dunno. I like doing everything naked. Cleaning the house, playing WoW, typing this thread entry.....

lastcall
I like drawing naked.

I demand video footage! :)

I used to like lying on the floor when I was younger... Then I used to like sprawling on the couch in front of the TV- whether painting or drawing, that was perfect!

But now I work exclusively on my tablet in front of my PC. I like to keep the tablet flat on the desk as I sit comfortably in my fur and cushion covered, rolly chair. I just replaced my previous office style rolly, spinny chair with an older shiny chromed and upholstered on from the 80's or the 70's. It was free, looks cool and is quite comfy, also, it has a rocking feature!!! I can lean back in it, it's cool.

But if I ever do drawing on paper again, it has too be on a comfy couch or at the very lest a seat on the train! I've done some good work sitting on the train.

I switch between lying on the bed, and sitting in front of the computer with the board on a cheap adjustable table. Propping things up on my legs reserved for desperate times, because it's uncomfortable for me, and they shake.

This.

Easily the most comfortable.

Sarah, you can come over to my house to do your drawing ok? ^_^
I'll give you free materials, whatever you want, I'll even PAY you! lol!

lastcall
I like drawing naked. I don't know why. ...Maybe it helps me connect to my character? I dunno. I like doing everything naked. Cleaning the house, playing WoW, typing this thread entry.....

Ha! me too! except when I draw at work...they might get a little upset if I started getting naked at work :D

Well, for one I have to be sitting. As long as I have a comfy chair I can draw anywhere. Loud music is always a plus.