Drawing on the iPad

I missed the first painting session as I was away in San Francisco. It was the paint mixing lesson I took a few weeks ago. However, I had become increasingly fascinated by the Brushes application on my son's iPhone and had begun to look at the art done on the iPhone and now iPad that was finding its way onto the art sites. Above all I was captivated by David Hockney's work on the iPhone. He seems to wake up each morning and does a 'painting' on his phone and sends it to a group of friends who all get a brand new Hockney before breakfast.

I was attracted to the immediacy, the rich colours and the plasticity of the process. I had a feeling it would help me to draw and paint more. So when in San Francisco I indulged myself and bought an iPad and immediately downloaded Brushes. I confess to being quickly captivated by all the aspects that had drawn me to it.

I is taking time to get used to, but generally I am enjoying the freedom, the inability to obsess with detail and the chance to float colour into anything. I also greatly appreciate the ability to layers drawings. It is starting to get me thinking about how print making might work. There is nothing special about my early efforts but they are strangely pleasing on the eye and most importantly they are encouraging me to look and draw. Here are two sketches:

 Finally, I have been importing some of my art work from the class and using the application to try out colours and new layers. Here's a charcoal drawing with some colour layers in anticipation of a lesson to come in taking our charcoal drawings and turning them into paintings.