Karin Wells Studio: Gadgets

Lord, I love a gadget!

In those salad years I carried a sketchbook nearly everywhere I went. Now I'm thinking how useful this little sketchbook device would have been too.

The three paintings just above and below have been done on the iPhone.

An app called "Brushes" is the medium.

The program is simple but the result can be rather sophisticated.

These three paintings above are samples from the Brushes Gallery. (I don't know the names of these artists but will post them when I find out).

The paintings below are by Jorge Colombo:

He painted it on his iPhone with an app called "Brushes."

Jorge Colombo has been working with watercolors and pens for decades.

But his latest tool, the iPhone app Brushes, has landed him a spot on the cover of The New Yorker Magazine.

Colombo's picture is of one of those street carts that sell hot dogs and pretzels in the heart of New York's Time Square. He stood there and painted it using his iPhone.

"Brushes" is available for download at the Apple App Store.

It only costs five bucks - who could resist?

Jorge Colombo

I think the best feature of this is that it doesn’t feel like something that was done digitally - it is quite the opposite."

Jorge Colombo

It is a bit like finger painting - using finger strokes on the tiny iPhone screen.

Colombo drew this painting within an hour while standing in line outside Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in Times Square.

A brand new, no mess, no cleanup, no fuss quickie art form. You can stand there in public and not attract any attention whatsoever as you paint. For all the world knows you're just playing Solitaire.

Jorge Colombo

The Brushes app works on both the iPod Touch and the iPhone.

Marc Scheff did the above portrait on his iPhone.

Click and you can see how he paints this. It is a fascinating process.

Here's how Marc did the little movie (link above).

Brushes Viewer is a free application for Mac OS X that allows you to replay your Brushes paintings stroke for stroke, export them at very high resolutions (up to 1920 x 2880), and even export them as QuickTime movies.

iPhone paintings were completely new to me until I read about them in Robert Genn's Twice-Weekly Newsletter. You can Subscribe free.

Genn's website The Painter's Keys is a great resource for painters. I go there often to browse.

Thanks Robert!

* NOTE:

Groan...I just got an email saying that the sender did not like my "new work" (meaning these drawings).

Sigh.

This is NOT any presentation of my "new works." These are merely exercises to loosen up, observe quickly and capture the essence in 15 seconds or less...the opposite of what I do all day at the easel.

It really helps me to do something completely different and I wanted to share this cheapie little drawing device that has helped me so much.

I confess that after a long day at the easel, I sometimes like to relax in front of the TV. The odd thing is that some days I just cannot put down that dratted brush.

So when I discovered the “Budda Board” in a local store, it was the perfect "Busman's Holiday" for me.

I suppose you could call it a children's toy or merely a fun thing that nobody really needs.

I love drawing the animals from the National Geographic channel (yeah, it's a polar bear).

The Buddha Board is a medium value grey board made of some kind of “plastic.” You draw on it with a clean brush and plain water.

This is what a Buddha Board looks like - a pretty low tech thingy. You can see my scribble with water on the surface. It evaporates quickly - and disappears even sooner after a swipe with a paper towel.

It's a good exercise in drawing quickly and capturing the "essence." I like to experiment with different brushes.

And cheap - no paper/pencil costs.

I draw what is in front of me - from the TV screen - as “moving models” keeps me loose and painting at the speed of light. It surprises me how often I can get a "likeness" this quickly.