Learning the knobs

The drawing school: steering one continuous line

Nobody draws a circle on day one. The screen teaches in a fixed order, and skipping ahead just means more shaking. Here is the order.

Start with stairs

Turn one knob at a time and nothing else. Right knob a little, left knob a little, and you get a staircase. It sounds like a beginner exercise because it is one, but it builds the reflex that matters most: knowing without looking which knob owns which direction.

Then earn the diagonal

Turn both knobs at the same time, at the same speed. If your hands drift apart, the slope goes jagged, and you can read exactly which hand rushed. A clean ramp at a steady 45 degrees is the screen’s first real test, and roof lines are the reward.

Circles are a negotiation

A curve is both knobs moving at once while trading speed: one hand slows down exactly as the other speeds up. Practice quarter arcs in each direction before attempting a full loop. Expect your first circles to look like potatoes. Everyone’s do.

Hide your travel lines

Since the stylus cannot lift, getting from a finished part to a fresh part leaves a trail. Old hands route those trails along edges of shapes already drawn, or along the border of the screen where the frame swallows them. Plan the exit before you finish the shape, not after.