Phoning on Your Sketchpad...more ways to draw

     Someone asked David Hockney if he painted on his portable phone. He replied that he phoned on his sketchpad! Painters who once used sketchbooks to make notes for future paintings are sometimes now finding drawing on their smartphones does the job, the technology is so hip.

      I have always had apps on my phone for drawing so that the grandchildren could grab to start sketching...apps like Doodle Buddy, Whiteboard, Paper. and Brushes. Many years ago I heard that David Hockney painted with Brushes. I sat on the floor under the Christmas stockings by the fireplace and painted on my iPhone just using my finger. Then the Brushes app could not be updated and I forgot about it until the Apple Store announced free classes in learning to use the Procreate app.

      $10 Procreate is a professional winner for use on an iPad, but last night I discovered the $5 Procreate Pocket for my iPhone. I downloaded and created many drawings in bed and I can't stop smiling! My MEKO stylus arrived today. 

       At the turn of the new year, I had fun tracing people in photos over which I put a screen in "layers" and drew with a digital stylus. Many were amazed by the results. You can import a photo to use. There are so many brushes and within each category of brushes, more brushes. You can enlarge and reduce the size of brushes and your tracing. You can move what you are working around with fingers on the screen. There is a learning manual on line  for both Procreate and Procreate Pocket, and classes at the Apple Store are also free. Of course free-form sketching for paintings are the main draw to this app! Dive in to be rewarded.

The Apple Store says:
Explore how to start a sketch by tracing with the Procreate app on iPad Pro.  Beginning with a photograph, we'll show you how to follow contours of a portrait with Apple Pencil. You'll practice adding shadows and curves to create depth, adjust opacity and layers, and select a color palette for a portrait sketch to take home. Devices will be provided. Recommended for beginners.

Procreate® Handbook  https://procreate.art/handbook/
‎Procreate Pocket Handbook on Apple Books https://books.apple.com/us/book/procreate-pocket-handbook/id1198136785

   

Recovering December: Use it or lose it

       A post a month is my goal, although in the beginning, ten years ago in 2010, it was one a day. Life happens and I missed December 1919, but not the art.

      First stop in NYC was the Whitney Museum in Chelsea. Katie alerted me that Liza Lou had a room, an entire kitchen, made of beads. Joe and I favored the 6th floor. The sculpture also grabbed us: some giant animal ceramics and Arneson's striking bust. In the cafe there were pumpkin seeds all over the tops of the oatmeal cookies and a favorite, pimento cheese, was turned into a dip with chips. We walked the High Line for more art.  

The Met was next where we went to see Vallaton's art. His prints and paintings staggered.A revisit to the Christmas tree was a bonus, a creche as I was in pursuit of creches, missing mine lost in the fire. I was inspired to see an elderly man with his stool and mounted paper, sketching ceramic or clay wrestlers in charcoal. If I lived in NYC I would spend many of my days in that building.The subway had a post from Michelle Obama's painter; the street, a peace display; the Mexican food restaurant, murals.The cucumber margarita seemed healthy.

 

Neue Gallery merited a revisit.This time, I read about Kirchner's paintings, especially  colors, before my visit. I saw a lot more. The Austrian meal and coffee in the best booth underlined our good time. Every evening after dinner  I would draw Joe or the flowers in my sketchbook.

       Joe and I continued to the Met Breur for Vija Celmins, plus a New Year's Eve lovely meal. And why not the Jewish Museum with its honoring a gallery owner who advanced modern art in America?It was a  big show of favorites, from folk art to modern. Then, still pursuing a creche, we headed to the Museum of Natural History, the American Folk Art Museum and the Museum of Art and Design where a self portrait in cactus caught our eye.

      At the French restaurant around the corner, Joe found this brass plaque about the area where so much art is being shown in and out of museums and where we had such a good time. Read about the trees and The Night Before Christmas gift to all children.

       After a week+ we hit the road home. It was only in New Haven at Ten Thousand Villages that I found my creches. Joe then asked at home, as we opened the mail, if I would draw a New Year's card of the two of us and Harry. I tried and quickly experienced "if you don't use it, you lose it!!" Hopefully, some day I wll get back to work.

How did I forget to mention the Frick!!! Super show of Manets and sculpture!