Tag: art

abstract, acrylics, art, best effort, brushes, camera, iPad Pro, iPhone, paintings

Visions

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Visions

Visions

This is a painting I recently finished in my iPad Pro.  As many of you know from my previous blogs, I absolutely love my iPad Pro.  I did not expect to like it so much, but I do.

I also love the Apple Stylus or Pencil as they call it.  Apple completely knocked it out of the park when they made this stylus.  There is no drag on the stylus.  It draws just like you are using a real brush.  It is amazing.

On a completely different Apple product, I watched the Apple press conference yesterday.  I swore there was nothing, nothing that could get me to upgrade from my iPhone 6 Plus.  I am perfectly happy with it.  Except for one little thing.  The camera.  Yep.  The camera.  And Apple made a huge improvement in the camera.  They could have made it even better, but at least they are taking us up to 12 mega pixels.  So, yep, I gotta have one.  Plus, guess what?  Apple has learned how to make black.  Well, I gotta have black. I have my choice of matte or gloss.  They are trying to convince consumers that black is a big deal, and I’m falling for it.  But really, black?

Sigh, oh well, I’ll just open my wallet and let Apple pick away.

I look forward to sharing my new sharper photos with you next year when I have my new iPhone 7 Plus.

Additionally, Apple is going to be bringing us, hopefully, a depth of field feature via software.  In the iPhone 7 Plus, one will get an extra lens that zooms.  Go Apple, take my money!

 

abstract, acrylics, art, brushes, digital art, iPad Pro, paintings

Abstract Painting

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Untitled 22

Untitled 22

This is a new painting from my iPad Pro.  When I initially purchased the iPad Pro, I did not expect much from it.  I thought I would edit some photos on it, and do this and that.  But, OMG, the iPad Pro can do so much!  I love it.  When combined with the Apple Pencil, it is a powerful new digital tool for the digital artist.  And, this is just the first one.  As technology grows and expands, it will only get better.

I have always painted on my computer on an app called Painter, made by Corel.  Well, this last year, I have had nothing but heartache from Painter.  Corel, has done its usual thing of doing nothing to help the customer.  So, I have headed out in the world looking for alternatives to Painter.  I am shocked that I am finding them on my iPad Pro.

I did this painting in an app called Procreate on my iPad Pro.  In Procreate you can paint on any size canvas that you choose.  You can pick your dpi.  So this canvas is about 31″ x 13″ at 150 dpi.  If I tried to put this on Painter, the poor old thing would crash and burn.  I have also used large-sized canvases at 300 dpi on Procreate. What is great about Procreate is the huge number of undo’s you can have.  Like 200 and some. Painter would never stand for that. It would spit and cough and carry on and do everything but paint smoothly.  Also Procreate has fabulous customer service.  You can contact them directly on the internet; and I have even contacted them on Instagram and gotten responses.  Even to the most mundane of questions.  There they are.  There is a good community backing up Procreate where you can exchange brushes.

There is another painting app that I am finding to be excellent it is called Paintstorm Studio.  It is completely awesome.  It is going to be a real competitor to Painter.  You can use it on your iPad and on your computer.  The only problem with it is that it has a very sophisticated brush engine.  The developers are Asian.  So, there are no written instructions at this time.  You can watch some really fast videos.  But I need written, understandable instructions.  I keep making runs at Paintstorm, and eventually, I will figure it out.  But a written manual would be nice.

I didn’t really mean to talk about software, but there you have it, a little software review.

I had a lot of fun painting this abstract. It is an odd size.  It is a size that I haven’t tried before, but I rather like it.  It is fun to try different sizes. I’ve painted on a square for way too long. It was a joy to be able to paint and not have my app have brush lag and spit at me!

 

art, best effort, brushes, digital art, iPad Pro, paintings, pencils

I’m Back!

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image

I think my decision to not post every single painting I do has freed me to blog.

I am painting way faster than I used to.  Plus, I’m also doing photography.  To post every painting and every photograph is unrealistic.  In addition, not all of them are worthy of viewing.  I know, it’s sad but true.  My husband puts it this way.

Look at baseball players.  If they hit .400 they are considered amazing.  But very few of them have ever had a .400 career.  Then look at most pitchers.  They can’t usually hit at all.  Of course, they pitch.

I have to admit, not all my paintings are home runs.  I’m not even hitting .400.  But I’m doing better than I used to.  Practice. That’s what makes the difference. And classes.

Also being in touch with other artists is very important. Then I find out that what I experience is not unique.  The older I get, the more I find that what I experience is most likely experienced by other human beings.

Just this last weekend, I was watching a video done by digital artists Aaron Rutton (http://aaronrutton.com) and Skip Allen (http://skipallenpaints.com).  The screen was split in two.  On one side, Skip was painting some beautiful watercolor flowers.  Aaron was hosting Skip and was just kind of doodling and not trying very hard. Frankly, he was making a mess.

Then Aaron checked on the size of his audience.  He saw they had 95 viewers.  He decided he should up his game.  He drew this fabulous portrait.  That’s what happens to me if I don’t try hard enough.  I draw a mess.

Then, Skip showed some flowers he had done in preparing for the video they were doing.  He was unhappy with his results in the video.  He thought they were too tight.  He showed his first flowers and how loose they were and how as he went forward they kept getting tighter.  They looked pretty good to me.  But I completely related to what he was saying.  The more I work at my art, the tighter it gets.

Until I saw that video, I thought I was the only person cursed with this problem.  But, no, yet again, I find I’m just like other people.  If I don’t pay attention to my art when I’m doing it, I get a mess. If I’m not careful, it gets too tight very fast.

That, finally, brings me to the above painting.  I did this on my new iPad Pro. I love painting on it. I am using the painting app Procreate which is totally awesome.  It comes with a ton of brushes in all kinds of media.  It works extremely well with the Apple Pencil. I’m fact, this last weekend, they had an update to make it even more compatible with the Apple Pencil.

This morning I was working on this painting, and I had this crisis.  I really wanted to do more to it.  But I knew if I did it would get tight and be ruined.  I find I always am doing that to my paintings.  Too tight.  So, even though this feels unfinished, I’m calling it finished.  It was really hard to sign it and put it up.  Every fiber in my body wants to do more to this.  But I’m not going to.  Just this once.  Then I’ll see what happens next painting.

acrylics, art, best effort, brushes, digital art, digital art academy, oils, Painter, paintings, positive

I’m Giving Up

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Out In A Flash

Out In A Flash

I have faithfully posted every painting I have done since I started my blog.  Then my husband retired.  I always did anything blog related during lunch.  Well, now I eat lunch with my husband.  I can’t fit blogging into my life.  But I loved to blog.  I loved the few blog buddies I made.  They were great friends.  I had some loyal followers.  I chatted back and forth with a few people.

I miss blogging,

But I just can’t fit it in like I used to.  I don’t want to take my site down, but I probably should.  I put up a post and get three likes at the most.

I keep hoping it will work out somehow.

Blogging saved me,  I was stuck in bed for over 18 years with Lyme disease.  I’ve finally gotten better.  That’s also probably why I can’t fit in blogging.  I actually have a life now.  Not a real big one, but it keeps getting bigger.

Anyway, I’m going to start by not posting every painting I paint.  First, some aren’t that good.  Second, I just can’t keep up.  Third, I’m posting them all over at Instagram,  if anyone has s burning urge to see all my art, go there.  Then you can also see my photography.

Yes, I’m doing photography now.  I even have a macro lens for my iPhone.  I bought an Olloclip macro,  it is totally awesome.

The painting is called Out In A Flash.  I painted it with some awesome brushes made by Skip Allen.  You can check out his super blog at http://skipallenpaints.com.

art, brushes, digital art, Painter, paintings, watercolor

Watercolor 3

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Sumi Watercolor 3

Sumi Watercolor 3

This is a watercolor I did in Painter 2016.

I started this painting by working with a particle brush to make the dark lines.  Then I filled in with watercolors for the rest of the painting.

At the end, I added some collage elements with design paper.

This is a completely different type of painting for me.  It was a lot of fun to do.  I may do a few more like this.

art, best effort, digital art, iPad Pro, paintings

iPad Art

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2016-04-24 08.21.33

I recently bought an iPad Pro along with the Apple stylus.  I didn’t know it, but apparently the Apple stylus is the only one that doesn’t have some kind of drag on a tablet.  I am totally delighted with the iPad Pro and its stylus.  I highly recommend both.  I have a desktop computer with 32 GB of RAM and an i7 processor.  I demand a lot out of my computers when I am doing graphics.

I am using an app called Procreate (check it out here).  It claims to be the most advanced painting app ever created.  I don’t know about that.  But it is very cool.  It comes with a lot of brushes and you can make your own.  Also, you can import other brushes from friends, if you have any who are making Procreate brushes.  They have a community that does not seem too active on their website.

I find their painting app to be totally awesome!  Having used many, many painting apps over the years, I feel qualified to say this.  While this app is not Painter.  I will say that in some good ways it is not Painter.  It does not have brush lag and it is not buggy.  It works smoothly and responds well.  I love it.  It does not have the variety Painter has.

However, if you’re looking for the variety of Painter, check out a new app called Paintstorm here. That is an app that may come along and bite Painter.  Not only can you use it on your iPad, but you can use it on your computer.  It is also awesome.  But it is more difficult to figure out and their videos do not have words, so it is very challenging.  I need some more time to completely figure it out.

I did this painting in Procreate and had a lot of fun doing it.  It did not crash on me one single time while I did the painting.  That meant I did not have to start the painting over again.  What a delight.

acrylics, art, best effort, digital art, flowers, Painter, paintings

The Outsider

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The Outsider

The Outsider

I started this painting in Rebelle, a watercolor app.  Then I brought it into Painter and finished it with acrylic-like paints.

I am calling this the Outsider.  The little bird on the left wants to join the two birds on the right.  But, they are busy gossiping.  He feels very left out.  The two birds will let him join them as soon as they finish their gossip.

I think there’s a lesson here.  Don’t gossip.  People know they shouldn’t.  These two birds that are gossiping are embarrassed to have the little bird join them because they know gossiping is wrong.  Really, it’s none of your business.

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