H is for "Highly Realistic" (or maybe hope)

I created this image with the Oil tools and brushes in Art Rage.

After downloading and playing with the free Art Rage Oils app, I invested $4.99 to purchase the full program. This is clearly the premier painting program available for Android users, described as "natural painting software." In my opinion, it totally lives up to its promise of "highly realistic" painting tools.

To create this sunset (sunrise?), I played with various brush choices and of course, colors. I loved the way this tool allows me to blend colors, choose hues and tints within the color menu, highlight parts with thin and delicate overlays, scratch through the paint with a thin brush, and all in all - have a very satisfying and higlly realistic painting experience.

Just what I needed on this horrific election day - here's hoping for a happy outcome - for all of us.

E is for Emboss Brush

 I spent the day with my almost six year old grandson. He is a most enthusiastic artist, and is as in love with making art on his Android tablet (a gift from a granddad) as I am with mine. So, yesterday, we worked in tandem - in Paint Joy.

To begin, he taught me to draw a pigeon  - his way. He selected the emboss brush - thin to outline and then thick to create rich gooey looking color. We tried different background colors, and noticed how they made the paint colors look different.

With L, all work has a nature theme, which reminded me that I had just taught a lesson on owls to my senior class. Since he'd taught me pigeons, I demoed the steps I use to create an owl. And then we painted.

Can you tell that we had fun?

D is for Digging In

I am enthralled with the  Paint Joy app on my Android tablet. It is so simple, and yet, the more I play, the deeper I dig into what the tools can do, I can't help but feel a little guilty about how easy it is to create something beautiful or interesting or in a new way. Is it really art if its so easy?

My professional life was based on my ability to use computer tools to design graphics, logos, newsletters and websites. I am an early user of CorelDraw (v. 3 anyone?)
I use Photoshop and dozens of art and photography programs to design.

But, inspite of all this highly visual and often beautiful work, I never felt like an artist until I began to paint and draw. Pastels were my gateway ... Since then (8 years) I have focused much of my creative attention on working and teaching in the real world of brush and canvas.

But - my idea of fun is to create variations of my drawings/ paintings in Photoshop or some of the cool phone apps that do awesome things as well. So - I work back and forth - what I do in one mode enhances the other.

Now I've moved from the mouse to the stylus and the game has changed. I'm in a middle place where digital art meets fine art and the results are fantastic - fun and surprising.

I did this sunny piece as a way to study the effects of adjusting the width and opacity of the sketch brush,  I worked on a dark blue background, but the bright yellow paint stays on the surface while letting some color show through.

Cool!

B is for Brushes

Sketch Long Fur

The next app I tried was Paint Joy, a "wonderful drawing program for all ages to free your imagination and inner artist. Simple, neat while full of possibility. With Paint Joy, you have full control of brush style, color, brush size, background color etc.
Paint Joy has more than 20 beautiful brushes, such as glow neon, glow, crayon, chalk, sketch etc. You can draw on a color canvas, or decorate any of your photos to make them more beautiful.

The app supports a built-in gallery which saves not only your drawing pictures, but also the drawing animation. You can play back your masterpieces like a small film anytime you want with the "Movie" feature in app."

Sketch Brush (my fav)

In many ways, this is my favorite app because the brushes are so fantastic, so easy to use, and result in such gorgeous lines and shapes. The downside to this app is that there are no layers available - more about layers later in the alphabet. However, you can save and share the image you've created and open it into another app - one that includes layering capabilities.

Web Sketch Brush

As an experiment for this blog, I created four pieces yesterday, each with a different background color (which is a great exercise in color work) and each using only one brush type. I played with the options provided for each brush, such as width, texture and opacity to create different effects. This allowed me to create stunning lines and textures. I also quickly discovered the incredible potential for creating gorgeous leaves. 

Shapes Brush

What a fun way to create four completely different works without getting my hands dirty.

A is for App

Welcome back November and Art Every Day month. This is my seventh year of participation. This year my plan is to focus on a new art form that has me intrigued. I look forward to another great month of creativity, work and sharing. So, on to the art.

I have always wanted a gadget that I could use to draw directly on the screen, something that would let me be creative while traveling in our camper. Also, I am always looking for tools that let me work in different ways.

I wanted a way to use a stylus and I need a large enough surface area so that I feel as if I am actually  drawing or painting directly.

In August my husband gave me an early birthday gift, a 10" Fire Tablet by Android. I am hooked. I am thrilled. I can't stop playing with it.

Simply by playing I am learning new approaches not only to working on the tablet, but finding ways to apply what I am learning in this digital format to my work in paint and other materials.

I am also understanding how this tablet allows me to combine my graphic and digital skills and tool knowledge with my fine art hand skills. Fascinating.

My first task, after an arduous setup process was to explore the art apps available. There are not as many as I imagined, for Android, but after reading reviews I knew that one, ArtRage is the standout. (I will be writing more about the full app in later posts.)

To give it a try, I began with ArtRage Oil, a free, limited version of the ArtRage for Android app. The website says that it was “created to allow people to try out ArtRage’s oil paints easily, and for children to use.” It doesn’t say how much pure fun it is to work with.

August was hot, but I spent hours in the shade of our grape arbor experimenting, first with only my fingers, and then with my new stylus. I am awed by the ease of use, and the amazing way that the paints in the app react like oils in reality - moving and blending and creating dense or smooth textures. The art on this page are both finger paintings. For the one the top left, I  set the paint options to metallic, the lower right was in matte. Amazing? I think so.

And, I showed this app to my five year old grandson. He was making art in seconds - moving around in the tools seamlessly.

For this year’s challenge I will be working with, comparing and writing about the art related tools I am discovering, as well as focusing on the other (numerous) projects I am involved with. I am so glad to be back doing Art Every Day. I have lots to share.

Happy November. Art On.