paintings prints and stuff

Quick sketch from life using the Pen and Ink app on the ipad, drawn with my fingers The free Pen and Ink app really does have the scratchy feel of pen and ink.  It comes with very limited tools and options but you can pay to have more.   I'm planning to stick with the free pen option on this one. I couldn't work out how to open the image in another programme with layers to add colour (on the ipad) so I did it on the pc - see below: With added colour I simply worked on a layer below the pen drawing, using the colour at low opacity, with the layer option set to Multiply, so that glazes of colour built up with transparency.  I'm sure this is possible on the ipad when I can work out how to move the image into a suitable programme.   I know how to do the opacity/layers thing on the ipad in other apps - it's the moving an image into another app that I can't do. sketch of winter undergrowth using pen and ink app on the ipad, using a basic Colt stylus pe

Taken with the thermal image option on the ipad   A preliminary look at the apps for art and photography on the ipad that I've experimented with so far, some were deleted as rubbish but I didn't keep track of the names,  though I know Glaze was one, sorry!   ....... OmniSketch  A free app. This one was a lot of fun and my grandchildren enjoyed it as well (aged 2 and 5).  It is a little like the Mr Doob Harmony programme for pc I've shown here before, with interesting marks working on algorhythms. I really enjoyed experimenting with the way the marks interacted with each other and the difference that speed and pressure made.   The colour palette was a colour wheel , so lots of choices and the ability to choose close colour or tone, creating a reasonable amount of subtlety in finished pieces. The symmetry option was good - finished images sometimes felt as though they would work well in embroidery or stained glass or as a repeated pattern in fabric.

Wishing all my readers and friends a very Happy Christmas.  Someone sent me this great poem one year - 2 ca ts is even worse, especially when you've left it to Christmas Eve to start wrapping ......... Wrapping Presents with a Cat Clear large space on table for wrapping present. 1. Go to closet and collect bag in which present is contained, and shut door. 2. Open door and remove cat from closet. 3. Go to cupboard and retrieve rolls of wrapping paper. 4. Go back and remove cat from cupboard. 5. Go to drawer, and collect transparent sticky tape, ribbons, scissors, labels, etc. . . 6. Lay out presents and wrapping materials on table, to enable wrapping strategy to be formed. 7. Go back to drawer to get string, remove cat that has been in the drawer since last visit and collect string. 8. Remove present from bag. 9. Remove cat from bag. 10. Open box to check present, remove cat from box, replace present. 11. Lay out paper to enable cutting to si

sunset study with the Pastels app on ipod The ipastels app on the ipad is good to use, a definite keeper.  If you like using pastels this is defintitely worth trying out. I've downloaded several .....  umm  quite a lot.... of apps to try out, those that I don't like will be deleted eventually. As I've downloaded this I can't tell if it was a freebie or a bought one, sorry but it doesn't show any more once it's purchased - but the prices for any I bought were very low, all under £3. It's very simple to use with all the options clearly laid out and quick to access. You can work on different layers, preserving the layers beneath while you experiment.   I haven't used this yet but have worked in a similar way in Photoshop and know how handy it is. The image above was done on a single layer. You can vary the stroke width and pressure, meaning colours mix very naturally, thin veils of colour can be laid down and subtle transitions made, the sm

more sketching with omnisketch and close up detail I think some of the earlier doodles would have worked well as stained glass windows with the light glowing throught them - this one I see as an embroidery.  If I had the talent I'd have a go at doing one! What do you think? and thank you for the app suggestions, they've been extremely helpful. And as a teaser - Derwent have got a really gorgeous new product coming out next year.   I can't tell you about it but I'm going to get to play with it :>)  I did have a really quick secret go when I was demo-ing at the NEC in October and LOVED it!  The hitmen would be after me if I told though :>D

   detail of drawing below More drawings on the ipad, using Omnisketch.   Isn't the blue/purple luscious against the firy reds and oranges? entire drawing using omnisketch I've shown details as the fine marks don't show otherwise. detail of above image Still loving it!   I have to work out how to get these directly from the ipad to the blog - if anyone wants to leave instructions in the comments I'd be delighted,  So far I've emailed them to myself and posted via the computer.

Drawing with an ipad detail showing the marks My Christmas present to me, from me, for having had a horrible year was an ipad.  Friends have given me masses of great advice on which apps to download for art (and others).   Any more advice on apps is welcome. This one is done with OmniSketch and it works on algorhythms, rather like the programme by Mr Doob that I've used here before.  It's lovely for creating rich patterns and this one was done using an option that creates the symmetry as you go.  Lines relate to each other, depending on nearness and the speed of your hand as you draw, creating fine spidery marks linking them.   There is a gallery of paintbrush, mark making options.  It's fun! I've got Brushes - as used by David Hockney - and Procreate, which I'm told is good but haven't seriously played with these yet.  I got hooked into the rich, decorative Christmassyness possible with Omnisketch. I have to say that the ipad is very very user

error corrected - that doorway, gouache and tinted charcoal pencil Looking at that doorway again, I realised that with talking, teaching and not paying proper attention, I'd got the proportions of that downpipe way out!  I'd been reading it as a dark piece of wall (working from a photo in the warmth  in class on this one and I doubt if I'd have been so silly if I'd been working from life, bad print on typing paper too). So .... it was a case of washing out the offending area to narrow the pipe and then adding the sliver of bricks  and matching the suggestion of the steel shutters.  Thank goodness it's easy to lift paint from the S&B paper because of its brilliant sizing.  So today's class had a demo of washing out mistakes!

Faded grandeur,   an A4 sketch of an Edwardian? Victorian? doorway, sandwiched between the shutters of adjacent factories.  Watercolour and tinted charcoal pencils I pass this door frequently and had never noticed it until a friend pointed it out!  This fascinating sliver of  ornate carving and tilework of the original building, now largely hidden and framed by huge modern metal shutters.  It's patched, distressed surface was fascinating and I may well do some close ups of that as it doesn't show so well at this scale. I've decided to extend the slow burning waterways project (city and county streams, rivers, canals, pools, flooded quarries etc) to include the city and the interesting or quirky or just beautiful-in-their-ugliness bits.  I'll keep this book just for this project and add the other urban stuff I've done to keep it together.  I'll probably keept the waterways element in the books that are already going. S&B  how about a pocket in the b