IPAD SKETCHES FROM THE PLANE!

Using Sketch Club application, I decided to play around with color and the different brushes using this image.  It is much easier to lift out the light area with a digital program than with paint and paper.  This is a great way to pass the time as I spent the day traveling.

AT THE END!

Here is the latest drawing from my iPad using the Sketch Club application.  I posted the beginning drawing on my other blog, Drawn from Limb to Limb.  To see how this drawing started, check it out.  I start by enlarging the screen but I don't really have a sense of how big the drawing will be or how much space is available.  I guess that comes with time and practice.  This is the finished product without any cropping so you can see there is quite a bit of white space around the drawing on the left and bottom.  The next attempt will be in color.  Once I master that, I think I am really in business.  I wish I had timed this drawing.  I think it took around 1/2 hour but I'm not sure.  

ANOTHER iPAD APP TO PLAY AROUND WITH

My self portrait a day project is not without precedent!  There is a woman, Julia Kay, who wound up doing over 1,000 self portraits, one day at a time.  I ran across her project as I wandered through the tangled paths of the internet.  Many of her self portraits were done with her iPhone apps.  This is where I discovered some very fun art applications.  The one pictured here is from the application TypeDrawing.  I imported an ink drawing from my daily self portrait series and then layered the type on top.  I haven't spent much time with this application, but it has great potential for some interesting ideas.  By combining several apps in one image, the variations possible are in the stratosphere!  

I'M JUST CRAZY FOR JACKSON!

Here are a few digital paintings I made on the iPad using the Jackson Pollock painting application.  What a fun way to drip and fling paint!  Once you get a spatter pattern you like, you save the image to the photo gallery and then you can open it in another app program and add controlled lines and other elements.  I think these would be fun to print as cards.  Looks like a party going on!!!

TELEVISION AND ART

Yesterday I was reading a new book on expressive drawing.  It had exercises for intuitive mark making.  I decided to get out my iPad while watching "So you think you can dance" and make expressive marks following the rhythm and movement of the dancers.  This was lots of fun to do and a good use of this little device.  I changed colors and width of line etc. messing around.  This one suggested a face (what a surprise!) and so I went back in with intention and pulled it together.  The "eraser" tool helps to clean up and eliminate some areas.  This image reminds me of wire sculpture I have seen using phone wires which are very colorful.  The second image is a moving figure.  I like working with the element of line and exploring many ways to use it.  The book is called "Expressive Drawing" by Steven Aimone

In a different combination of art and television, a friend just sent me a link to the new reality show pitting artist against artist for a big monetary prize and a solo show at the Brooklyn Museum.  Click on the title of blog post and it will take you to the link.  The first challenge involved portraits, so I was very fascinated with this episode.  I will let you draw your own conclusions.  I'm just glad I didn't sign up for this kind of madness.

MASK SKETCHES COMPLETED!

I am satisfied with the mask images.  Can you identify these artistic women icons?  I was able to use my iPad at the Gallery even though there is no WiFi connection.  The 3G feature worked like a charm.  I googled the artists I wanted to honor, find images and enlarge them well enough to work from them.  I hadn't envisioned this benefit when I got the iPad.  For someone as myopic as I am, this is a fabulous feature.  

Perhaps today I will find the time to work on the rest of the compositions so I can start the painting next week.  I am enjoying  revisiting the life stories of these special women.

INSPIRATIONAL WOMEN PAINTERS - FIRST STEP!

This is the first of six drawings I plan to do in preparation for my next painting.  I need to paint something without any collage material to enter AWS.  All of the work I have been doing this year involves collage, as that was part of what I was exploring.  I have had this idea of combining famous women artists of the past who inspire me for one reason or another with a self portrait.  I think this approach skirts copyright problems.  I am sketching on tracing paper and will transfer the image when I am satisfied.  I will have to reposition the image so as not to cut off the hand at an awkward place, namely the wrist!  I worked on my self portrait from a photo I had downloaded into the ipad.  This was so terrific to work from!!!  I could enlarge and bring it back at a touch and the screen didn't keep going dark like my computer screen does when there is no activity.  I could also play around with cropping.  I sat in a comfy chair in the living room with the drawing pad in my lap and holding the ipad in my left hand.  The mask is an image of Kathe Kollwitz.  Her work is perhaps the most moving of any artist I can think of.  If you are not familiar with her, do a little research.  You will become a fan.

SECOND CHILDHOOD!

This was done on my new i-pad by pulling up a photo of my drawing and then coloring it.  It is a combination of coloring book and finger painting!  I think I am in my second childhood with much more sophisticated toys.  The face is done with the "spray can" (airbrush effect) and the dots and cross hatching were a different tool and I don't know what that is called.  I am discovering more and more as I poke around try things out.  

Send me any images you have created digitally with a drawing program.  If I get enough, I can make a slide show .

MORE ABOUT THE I PAD!

This is a little image I created on the I Pad using the app "Art Studio"  It is only $.99!  There are quite a few choices of programs and since I was pretty much a novice, I thought I would start with a cheap one and learn how to manipulate things and then, if I wanted to, I could go with a more extensive program.  This little program has quite a few variables to play with.  It is hard to explain how this program works except it is very much like Photoshop and your finger moves over the screen instead of a mouse curser or a stylus, pen, pencil or brush, etc.  Like so many things visual, you actually have to do it to learn it.  This drawing/painting took me about 40 minutes.  

There were some interesting questions sent to me from the last post, so I thought I would attempt to answer them in this post.

The I Pad that I got is 32 G of memory and has the optional 3g capability to have internet connection anywhere with the phone service.  It turns out that you don't have to have the phone service all the time and pay every month.  You can be selective and activate it when you need it!  I will only need it when I travel so it doesn't add that much more to the cost of the device since I don't travel that much.  

Besides being  a fun toy, my main thinking about the value of this device for me is in traveling.   This I Pad can act like a sketchbook where I can do drawing and painting once I get the hang of it.  The images can be sent by e-mail back to your home computer (or anyone else, for that matter).

It is much more portable than my laptop.  If I am traveling for pleasure, not business, I mostly like to have e-mail capability plus certain data files.  If I am teaching, I am going to learn how to use a slide show like presentation rather than dragging lots of clip files of examples.  This will lighten the amount of material that I take significantly.  I downloaded the Keynote program to the I Pad and now I have to learn how to use it.  In addition, I will need a small portable digital projector and I will be in business!  

The add ons for the I Pad that I wanted are: A notebook protector cover.  It not only protects the I Pad but can act like an easel and allows for the device to stand on a surface in either landscape or portrait mode.  The second item is a connection that allows me to download photos directly into the I Pad from my camera.  The Apple Stores are always sold out of this item as it sells out instantly when they get a shipment!  I will probably order it on line.  The last add on is a cable that connects the I Pad to the digital projector (or, I think, a television monitor).  Since I haven't created any presentations yet, this can wait.  I find it easy to type on the keyboard screen so didn't want the blue tooth separate keyboard. 

So far, the e-book feature is not up to par for me, as I wanted art books with color photos to download.  So far, these are not available.  I tend to prefer books on tape to reading novels.  I get them free from the library.  I think the book feature will improve with time and I am looking forward to that.

NEW TOY!!!!!!!!

When the I Pad was first announced, my husband declared it a dud and predicted  there would be no takers.  He is a pc dude and I am an apple lover.  Guess who just STOOD IN LINE for several hours (you have no idea how remarkable this act is) on Friday when the 3g models became available and bought "his and hers" I Pads!!!!!  A slightly early birthday gift to me, a "Happy Un-Birthday to me" gift for him.  Shopping in the App store is like being a kid in a candy store!!!  I downloaded a $.99 painting program and this is my first finger painting since kindergarten!    This is going to be sooooo much fun.  It takes a little practice but I am up for the challenge.  Saturday we are driving down to Southern California for Mother's Day.  I will have lots of time in the car to play.  I am actually looking forward to being in the car most of the day.  Truly a miracle device.