Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I reminisce about tracing paper.

When I was a kid, I would trace things. Now that I think about it, I recall tracing some things when I was in graduate school working on a PhD. Whoa.

Anyways, I would trace things. These things were for school projects most of the time, but sometimes I would trace things just for fun. It felt good to be able to create a picture, even if I was “cheating” by using a lot of another person’s work.

I haven’t seen tracing paper in years. I guess the last time I saw it was when I was doing that tracing as part of a PhD. I learned this morning that you can still buy tracing paper. Here is one source.

But what happened to tracing? I guess it was yet another casualty of computers and printers and great graphics software. Why trace something when you can draw perfect squares and circles and curves with the dragging of a mouse? Why trace when you can copy am image from anywhere on the Internet and past it into just about anything.

Still, there was skill involved in tracing. I had to place my pencil in the right spot, move my hand smoothly without jitterring, and lift it just right. Kids don’t have that experience today. Just move a mouse over a large spot and click. It just isn’t the same.

One of these slow days, I think I will find some tracing paper, sit with my grandchildren, and show them the type of thing people did before computers were everywhere.