Category: Video (page 1 of 1)

Videos and movies.

Piano Circa 1989

I discovered this clip of me playing piano at home on an old VHS tape. It was Christmas time in 1989. I used an Elgato Eye TV Hybrid USB video capture device to transfer the clip to my iMac. I then used Miro Video Converter to change the file to a mp4 file and to make an Ogg Theora version. These files were for playing in this blog post and are 352 x 264 pixels. I also made a larger version m4v file (640 x 480 pixels) which you can see here.

I play “Deep Purple, “Three To Get Ready”, “Nola”, and “Cast Your Fate to the Wind”. Duration: 13.5 minutes.

Jim

Value Sketches

Value Sketches

We figure things out – shape, edges, distance, and more – using values (light and dark). Color is secondary to our understanding of the world. Values are therefore more important than colors in a painting. Here’s a slideshow that shows a value sketch, a painting with color added underneath the value sketch, and finally just the color. (Of course colors have their own values).

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I like to do quick value sketches on location before starting a painting. Its a tremendous help in planning the basic structure and exploring what’s important in the scene. Traditionally artists have used pencil, charcoal, or ink to draw value sketches. I thought I’d explore using the iPod Touch instead. It’s the right size – screen size is about 2 x 3 inches which is the size I usually make in a sketchbook. It’s also handy. It fits in my shirt pocket and I always have it with me and I already use it to take reference photos.

I experimented with several different painting apps. I first used Sketch Club which I like because I can make custom brushes and it has an eight step grayscale color palette. I also tried ArtRage and Sketchbook Mobile, but rejected them. ArtRage on the iPod creates files which are too small and Sketchbook has too clumsy an interface. I really like Procreate on the iPad, but the iPad is too big to carry around conveniently. The best was Brushes. It makes nice large files and you can playback a movie of your painting process. Here’s a sample.

Jim

Online Blues

Just a little going away song for Loraine. I recorded this with an iPad 2 and a Blue Snowflake USB mic. I then uploaded it directly to YouTube from the iPad.

Thanks and good luck Loriane.

Jim