Doing artwork on the iPad has been both frustrating and rewarding. Why frustrating? I have been in a comfortable rut with charcoal and pastel on Kraft paper for awhile. And doing charcoal gesture drawings on printer paper. I've received a lot of positive feedback on those works. So, I'm impatient with the learning curve of the iPad. I want to be just as skilled with it as I am with more traditional media. The tactile sensation is nothing like drawing with charcoal on paper. The tools provided by the app simulate oil painting, watercolors, pen, pencil, crayon, etc. But, it doesn't act exactly the same.
But. learning new skills is inherently rewarding. It's like solving a puzzle. I'm convinced that what we call self-esteem comes, in part, from mastery. The other component is unconditional love, but that's a different blog.
The iPad offers some interesting possibilities. I took a picture of a drawing that I gave away to the model. Taking a picture indoors with my iPhone camera produced a very blurry image. So, in iPhoto, I straightened and cropped the image, then uploaded it to the iPad. Brought up the ArtRage app, and started working on the image. Here is the progression:
But. learning new skills is inherently rewarding. It's like solving a puzzle. I'm convinced that what we call self-esteem comes, in part, from mastery. The other component is unconditional love, but that's a different blog.
The iPad offers some interesting possibilities. I took a picture of a drawing that I gave away to the model. Taking a picture indoors with my iPhone camera produced a very blurry image. So, in iPhoto, I straightened and cropped the image, then uploaded it to the iPad. Brought up the ArtRage app, and started working on the image. Here is the progression:
Here is the first blurry photo.
Then, straightened and cropped:
And, then, after some time playing around with ArtRage.
Is it better? Worse? Or, just different. The original drawing was a three-minute pose, if I recall correctly. Gesture drawings have a great feeling of energy. The ArtRage version looks more like an illustration, I think. I hope some of the energy remains.
The model still has the original drawing. The iPad offers the possibility of manipulating the original image many, many times over, without in any way altering the original piece. So, if I liked the original charcoal on printer paper piece, the wonderful thing is: it is still there, unchanged. Unless, of course, the model smeared the charcoal. Pretty cool.
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