We all went to the Oregon Garden in Silverton today for Father’s Day and had a nice walk. I stopped in the children’s garden to make this sketch while Jacob and Josh were over looking at the electric train.
Here’s the reference photo I took.
Jim
Category: Art (page 7 of 11)
Traditional and digital art.
I went for a walk in Bush Pasture park today. I wanted to try using my iPod Touch to make a value sketch before starting a watercolor. I sat on a concrete bench and did the value sketch first. Then I took a reference photo and used the PhotoFX app to generate a charcoal sketch version to see the photo in black and white (like a value sketch). Finally I sketched in my Moleskine with a Pilot FriXion 0.5 erasable pen. Then while checking the value sketch on the iPod, I used watercolor to sketch in the colors and values. Here’s a slideshow of the four together.
By doing the value sketch first it helped me to see the areas of light and shade. I need to make my darks darker and remember not to use Burnt Umber in the dark greens (Payne’s Gray works better – doesn’t look so muddy).
Jim
This is my first experiment with making custom brushes in the Sketch Club app on my iPod Touch. I found I could draw a custom brush shape on location and use it immediately. I made the maple leaf shape in black and white using Brushes (the app), saved it to my Camera Roll, and then loaded it into a custom brush in Sketch Club.
I also found I could add a canvas texture to the painting by importing the texture image into the top layer and setting the blend mode to Multiply.
Jim
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).
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
3-D Man
Art requires experimentation. You mustn’t be afraid to try new tools, processes, workflows, or styles. This is how you move forward.
This image began in Wasabi ( a painting app on my iPad). I then made a second version with ToonPaint and experimented with combining the two images in ArtRage and modifying the combination with Pixlromatic and Glaze. Here’s a collage of the process.
3-d-man-process
When I look at this image, it’s like I’m wearing 3-D glasses. The reds float in front of the screen and the blues push back below the screen. It looks like the colors are painted on different sheets of glass stacked up on each other. It must have something to do with my astigmatism.
Today was another beautiful day. I went for a walk in Minto Island park out South River Road. I stopped after about a half hour to sketch a stand of trees.
Minto Island Trees Watercolor
On the walk back, I stopped on a bridge. As I stood there a kayaker passed under the bridge heading north. I sketched him in quickly and then completed the rest of the sketch.
Minto Island Kayak Watercolor
Here’s the full spread of my 5 X 8 inch Moleskine watercolor notebook.
Minto Island Watercolor Notebook
I did both sketches standing up in the shade. I painted the trees resting the notebook on my bag which was hanging around my neck in front of me. For the second one I placed the notebook on the top rail of the bridge. After I finished each sketch (which took about 10 to 15 minutes each), I took a reference photo with my iPod Touch.
Jim
Back Yard Painting
I painted this on my iPod Touch in the back yard. It was late afternoon on a beautiful Spring day.
Here’s a gallery showing the progress of the work starting with a photo taken on my iPod Touch then roughly sketched in with ArtRage (also on the Touch).
I then sketched it again in Sketch Club on the Touch. Next I opened both versions on the iPad in ArtRage and combined pieces of each into a new version. I then used Pixlromatic to alter the color balance and to add texture and a frame. I saved two Pixlromatic versions (one more contrasty than the other). Finally I combined both of these versions in Blender to achieve the final version.
Red Poppy
Our one lone red poppy opened up last night.
We live in a universe dominated by chaos and entropy. I like to paint the anomalies. I did this on the iPad using a combination of the Artists Touch, ArtistaOil HD, and ArtRage apps.
Self Portrait
This morning at breakfast I got the urge to try the latest update of the Artists Touch app. I end up using a number of applications to complete this self portrait. First I opened the Artists Touch version in Pixlromatic and altered the color and contrast and added a border. I then opened that version in ArtRage to add the canvas texture and to do quite a bit of added brush work to add detail back into the painting. I added the signature in Procreate, and finally I cropped the image and sharpened it a bit in Photogene.
Late Afternoon Sun
The sun came out after a morning of rain. I’m sitting on the back porch catching some rays and made this sketch on my iPod Touch with the Sketch Club app. I then transferred the image to my iPad and used the Pixlromatic app to add the texture and frame.
We had beautiful weather yesterday. We visited the iris garden north of us which was in full bloom. I brought my small sketchbook and decided to try several small sketches instead of one larger one. These were quick color impressions.
Jim
Here is a gallery.
Front Yard Sketch
We had a bit of sun yesterday (and today). It felt good to sit on the front porch, read a book, and sketch on my iPod Touch. Just trying to capture some of the colors and shapes in front of me. Later, after I went inside, I transferred the sketch to my iPad and added some detail.
iPod Touch, Brushes, iPad, Procreate.
Winter Blues
I used the new brushes in iColorama to create this piece.
Yesterday I made a new travel watercolor palette out of a small Altoids can. I managed to squeeze in 12 colors. Here it is surrounded by my previous palettes. It’s about four times smaller than anything available commercially.
The one on the left is made by Daler-Rowney in England. The ones above are my previous homemade palettes (6 colors each) made out of containers that had saffron in them. I used InstaMorph plastic to fashion the dividers. The one on the right is a Koi watercolor set made by Sakura of Japan.
The hardest part was sculpting the dividers and the mixing area in the lid with the InstaMorph plastic. It becomes pliable when you heat it in hot water (150 degrees F), but it only remains soft for about 3 to 5 minutes. After that it cools down enough to get hard again. So, you have to keep dunking it in hot water to soften it up again. The problem is it slumps when it gets soft so you have to reshape everything again. Here’s a closer look.
The colors I used (from top to bottom, left to right) are: ivory black, Payne’s gray, burnt umber, burnt sienna, Prussian blue, cobalt blue, alizarin crimson, cadmium red, cadmium yellow, lemon yellow, sap green, and a violet that I mixed up from a 50/50 mix of cobalt blue and alizarin crimson.
I don’t know why nobody sells a small travel palette like this that you can fill with your favorite paints. Every artist I show it to wants one.
Jim