paintings prints and stuff

A new 25mm brush drawn  with a Dagi pen, using the Sketch club app on an ipad When these kind of pens for digital tablets came out they were very very expensive and I didn't feel I could justify one.   The Dagi pen has come down to an affordable, justifiable price now  and I've been playing, seeing how good it is.  Mine is a pretty frosted green :>)  It's good!  I don't know how robust it will be, time will tell.  The plastic disc is there presumably to protect the screen, it comes with a few spares,  obviously it is easily damaged.  The fine point means precise placement. The images shown were all drawn in this app on the ipad For accuracy in placement of the tip of the pen when drawing on the tablet, it feels just like normal pen/pencils - you can see precisely where you are placing the tip, unlike the normal rubber tipped stylus. The paintbrush was drawn on a single layer, flipping between pen and brush ...

Painting from memory; a fabulous late afternoon with fresh snowfall, low sun throwing apricot through and bouncing off the dark clouds and the snow. I stopped on the way home to look at the gorgeous light on the landscape.  The furrows and tyre tracks in the ploughed field made a beautiful pattern on the hillside, with smooth snow n the adjacent field. The low sun threw apricot light on the snow and shone through the dark clouds. It didn't last long.   By the time I'd driven for maybe 5 minutes it was gone, the sky was all dark clouds or grey.  So this is from memories.  I did take some photos but didn't get them out when doing this and the previous one, I started it off in the Pen and Ink app The image was then imported into Sketch Club and I painted it on a layer below with some final touches on a layer above the 'pen' sketch. I like this ability to use layers - it replicated using a watercolour wash over a pen sketch and then using a little...

Travelling home in the late afternoon the light was beautiful. The pattern of ridges and tyre marks in a ploughed field made sweeping patterns, defining the form of the land. The low sun reflected apricot colours on clouds and snow. And then a flock of birds took off from the field, making a beautiful moment even more special. I have to do some paintings from this, but for now I've just had time to do some sketches on the iPad. This is a test post from the iPad so I'm hoping it works ok.

Using Diptic and Adobe Photoshop Express Apps Diptic and Adobe Photoshop Express Apps for the iPad review I've used these 2 apps with photos here, but of course they will work equally well with art work, digital or analogue :>) I like the above image - it's a montage of my youngest grandson at Christmas  :>) I put the pictures together in an app called Diptic  - which has a variety of grids you can choose from (and edit) to create montages.   You can move the images about and enlarge or reduce them within their grid.   These were all cut from larger photos. It's very very simple to use and well worth having if you want to create this sort of compilation. The images were dropped into the grid, the text added and the whole changed to black and white in Diptic, then in Adobe PE I gave it a grainy texture.    I think these grids work best in black and white or sepia - or in the Warhol like effects of the thermal camera or similar....

More playing with Sketch Club on the ipad.   A portrait of my grandson. I need a finer stylus for finer detail, like features.   There is a good comparison, i n 2 parts, on youtube .   I want that pen type with the circular clear disc.   The brush would be fun maybe, though not essential.  He also recommends the Bamboo stylus - but buyers on Amazon slated it for an ephemeral lifespan - has anyone any experience of this? This was sketched in a mix of the pen and brush tools in Sketch Club and then using the text tool just for fun. The drawing was done on one layer with the colour added on the layer beneath, varying the opacity and brush size so that colours were overlaid and blended. more to come ................

Cat in digital calligraphy, Sketch Pad app on ipad The ability to draw in text (see last post) in Sketch Pad is fun. These were done importing the previous digital sketches I'd done from life in another programme ( see earlier post s ) and working in a layer above them.   You can swith the layers on and off, exactly like photoshop, by clicking on the eye.   Once I'd got the basics down I deleted that layer and finished the image. details sketch from life using Pen and Ink app the digital calligraphy drawing is based on this onward ................

Tangled undergrowth, a sketch done with the Sketch Club app on an ipad This App was highly recommended to me and I'm so glad.  It has all sorts of features that I want - the ability to use layers, to import images done in other apps, layer options much like Photoshop, a good range of marks including some of Mr Doobs , (a free online app that you can use on a pc) and more.  It really is a very versatile one.  There are good options on resolution and file types.  It's extremely easy to use, very intuitive. The ability to work onto images done in other apps (or of course your photos) extends the creative possibilities enormously. Below is an experiment with drawing in lettering, not a great drawing but it demonstrates the fluidity with which the writing moves.  This has lots of potential in images and design.  I input the words happy birthday and then simply treated the text like line, to draw the flowers .  They repeat endlessly.  Cool?...

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...