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
Author: Jim Blodget (page 8 of 15)
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.
Beaker
I recorded our cockatiel, Beaker, on my iPad using a new recording app called TwistedWave. It’s a nice little editor too. I normalized the recording and saved it as an mp3 file. The app also lets you FTP a file. So, I uploaded it to my blog server.
I also took Beaker’s picture with my iPad and resized it down to 1600 pixels tall using the iResize app.
I’m using BlogPad to write this post.
This is a test recording using my new equipment setup. I’m playing a Kurzweil PC 88, audio stereo left and right out into a Blue Mikey audio connector into an iPad 3 using the MultiTrack DAW app. No FX, no post production.
I’ve been practicing the piano for about a month and a half after a 20 year hiatus. I figure it will take several more months before I’m back to where I was. I’m putting this up to document my progress. I recorded this live with no edits. So, you will hear all my fluffs. Songs include “Take Five”, “Maple Leaf Rag”, “Nola”, “Solfeggietto”, ” Rock and Roll Boogie”, and “Cast Your Fate to the Wind”.
Length:15 minutes
Show Listing:
|
Song
|
Start
|
Length
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Nola | 0:00 | 4:41 | |
| Frog Legs Rag | 4:42 | 1:03 | |
| Sweet Georgia Brown | 5:45 | 1:31 | |
| 12the Street Rag | 7:16 | 1:24 | |
| Maple Leaf Rag | 8:42 | 3:10 | |
| Kitten on the Keys | 11:53 | 3:02 |
Description:
And now we travel back in time 40 years to hear me play some ragtime piano. I made these recordings on May 25, 1973. I was single then and for a short time I played piano in a bar in Dallas, Oregon. One day while practicing I used an audiocassette recorder so I could listen to my performance. These are unedited recordings including bad timing, wrong notes and all.
This picture of me at the piano was taken in Bartlesville, Oklahoma in 1969.
Equipment list:
- Griffin iMic
- Mac iBook using SoundEdit 16
The original recording was made on a Sony CF-400 audiocassette recorder. Each song was digitized through the iMic and saved as an AIF file at 16 bit, 44.1 kHz. I then combined all the songs into a single AIF file and used iTunes to convert the AIF file to a 64 kbps, 22kHz. MP3 file and to set the ID3 tags.
I produced this in real time on my iPad using the Mixtikl app. You can record live in the app and then save it to the clipboard and paste it in another application. I pasted it in MultiTrack DAW and added a fade in and fade out.
This time I’m sending a picture from my iPod touch using the email program.
Our peonies and rhododendrons are in full bloom.
Jim
Sent from my iThingy