I Did Not Kill Stanley Lieber: How to draw (with 9front)
I Did Not Kill Stanley Lieber: How to draw (with 9front)
v1, 2026-07-09
The penultimate paper on paint(1) and the 9front art machine.
0 Questions.
1 How to draw
1.1 The Machine
1.1.1 A Computer
1.1.2 Two in One
1.2 The Input
1.2.1 Mouse
1.2.2 Finger
1.2.3 Tablet
1.2.4 Keyboard
1.2.5 Drawterm / VNC
1.3 The Medium
2 paint(1)
2.1 Getting Startled
2.1.1 Pen and Mouse
2.1.2 What paint(1) cannot do for you
2.1.3 paint(1) Keys
2.2 Canvas
2.2.1 Treat the initial window size of paint(1) as your canvas
2.3 Tools
2.3.1 Colors
2.3.2 Brush
2.3.3 Fill
2.3.4 Eraser
2.3.5 Straight Line
2.3.6 Circle
2.3.7 Pan
2.3.8 Zoom
2.3.9 Undo
2.3.10 Reset
2.4 Faux Layers
3 Image Operations
3.1 page(1)
3.1.1 Viewport
3.2 vcrop(1), crop(1)
3.3 resize(1)
3.4 rotate(1)
3.5 Specific Canvas Size
3.5.1 Crop Mathematics
3.5.2 Extra Margin
3.5.3 Extra Margin
3.6 Faux Layers: Slight Return
3.7 Tracers Work Both Ways
3.8 Palettes
4 Get it out!
4.1 Conversion
4.2 Stop 9front
5 EOF
5.1 Special Thanks
5.2 Resources
0 Questions.
What is How to draw?
This is a document that will teach you how to<br>be just like me, drawing on computers running an operating<br>system you know nothing about.
Who might How to draw appeal to?
perverts
robots
witches
Who will How to draw not appeal to?
artists
atheists
iconoclasts
Why has How to draw been submitted to OCC 2026?
My 9front art machine is an old computer. It was used to create this document and<br>most of the visual attachments.
What's the tl;dr version of How to draw?
Click and drag.
How to get started with 9front?
Go here
Read the book
Before you scroll any further, it is strongly recommended that you first read Free Carrots #8: How to draw to familiarize yourself with the history and philosophy of drawing, and hardware and software options you might want to explore.
With that out of the way, this is:
1 How to draw
To draw you need two things. Something to draw with<br>and something to draw on. The natural inclination might be to use a real device<br>that you can touch with a pen and produce lines,<br>but there are worse and less convenient ways to draw with<br>9front that you might prefer. While this document is written<br>with a computer one can draw on in mind, most of it is applicable<br>to any of the input methods below. Maybe you can think of new ones.
1.1 The Machine
1.1.1 A Computer
If you don't care about drawing on screens, you can learn How to draw<br>on any computer running 9front.
1.1.2 Two in One
All in one. Canvas and brush - perhaps the ideal choice for<br>those who like to draw on paper. Wacomized laptops<br>with pens. Crack the screen open and draw on it. Here is a list of devices proven<br>to work well for the purposes of How to draw:
ThinkPad X41t
Thinkpad X60t, X61t
ThinkPad X380 Yoga
ThinkPad X1 Yoga 3rd Gen
ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
There's probably a million other 2in1 9front art machines that work well, you just have to find them, and preferably tell someone you did.
1.2 The Input
1.2.1 Mouse
Mouse drawing is a very old technique. Favored for its compatibility<br>with any computer that has a mouse.
1.2.2 Finger
Touching the screen emulates left mouse clicks. There's no way to emulate<br>any other, so a mouse needs to be kept nearby. Some people's entire gimmick depends<br>on the fact that they finger paint their art. If you have a device that allows it, you can<br>finger paint with 9front.
1.2.3 Tablet
External tablets with screens will (probably) not work with 9front.
External tablets without screens might work. Similarly to 2in1 drawing<br>computers, external tablet pens with buttons can potentially simulate all three<br>mouse clicks. I've seen it.
Of the three tablets that I personally tried, the one to recommend is GAOMON S620
Bought specifically for 9front, I ended up drawing the bulk of early<br>Techno-Mage with it in OpenBSD.<br>It still works great in 9front. Plug n play. Not so much in OpenBSD anymore.
The other two:
Acts like a touchpad (relative positioning) Wacom CTL-672
Does not work Wacom CTL-490
Some more information on external tablets: [fqa] 3.2.4 - Tablet Digitizers
1.2.4 Keyboard
You can't really draw with a keyboard (though you can write pictures),<br>but you can't get away without using it either. For tablet computers, inaccessible physical keyboards,<br>and other obscure setups, there is bitsy/keyboard, an on-screen keyboard.<br>It has to be started through rio with the -k option:
% rio -k 'bitsy/keyboard -n'
1.2.5 Drawterm / vnc
Drawterm into a distant and/or virtual 9front computer, use any of the aforementioned<br>methods and devices, and a million more. You'll probably have a bad time, but the size of your tool box<br>will grow drastically. You could finger paint with 9front from your Android telephone,<br>mouse draw from any Linux and MacOS, use all the input devices that don't work with 9front<br>from Windows,... Any combination of these will impress your hypothetical...