This is the train station in Salinas, California. I photographed it a couple of years ago on my way to visit my Dad. Can you see the train? It’s reflected in the window on the right.
I started this painting on the iPad in ArtRage using the photo as a reference. I made a pencil drawing. I then printed the drawing onto 9 x 12 inch watercolor paper using my Epson Stylus NX430 wireless printer. I did this directly from the iPad. Next I painted with watercolors and let it dry over night. The next day I scanned the painting on the Epson printer (it’s an all-in-one printer/scanner/copier). I did this from the iPad and saved the scan into the iPad’s Photos. Finally, I brought the watercolor scan back into ArtRage to do some touching up. I cleaned up the sky a bit and defined the roof line. I also worked some on the large window, touched up the brick in the upper left corner above the doors, and fixed the right side of the drain pipe below the overhang.
I really like this workflow. It uses each medium to its strengths. It’s easy to make a pencil drawing from a reference photo on the iPad. Real watercolor provides textures and color effects that just aren’t available yet on the iPad and happy accidents happen when you paint in watercolor. Corrections, while difficult in watercolor, are wonderfully easy on the iPad.
Art Notes:
I used the Ink Pen in ArtRage set to a light gray to draw the pencil sketch.
Epson Durabrite inks are waterproof. You can paint right over the lines without worrying about smears or bleeds. The downside is they cannot be erased like pencil.
It’s best to slowly build up watercolors from light to dark. You have to let each pass dry before adding more color. Otherwise the colors become muddy.
I got a memory error when I tried to scan on my iPad 1. I had to close all other open applications. Then it worked.
I used Photogene to correct the scan on the iPad. I used curves to brighten the whites. I also did a bit of sharpening. I resized the scan down to 1400 pixels wide when I saved it back to the Photos. That’s the largest size ArtRage can handle on the iPad 1.
I did the retouching in a seperate layer above the scanned image in ArtRage. I used the eye dropper to sample local color and then painted with the oil brush set to a small size. I then used both the wet and the blur palette knife settings to blend the color into the background painting. Occasionally I used the eraser tool erase out some of the color I applied.
I like retouching on the iPad. It’s much more direct than using a tablet and pen with a desktop computer.
Jim
Sent from my iPad
