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

   

April Art Action

      Not only was it fun to have three paintings (The Fire Trilogy) in Fairytales, Folktales & Fables, but a bit of a write-up in the local Belmont paper. That done and nostalgic for my roots, I started an oil painting "Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam, and the skies are not cloudy all day." I'm not sure how it will clean up! I have some more tunes in mind. Click to enlarge photos.

 

      Then Joe and I headed to NYC for an art trip, courtesy of son Jim and Colin who were on the road traveling. Joe and I first hit the Neue Gallery for a touching show Before the Fall, about art life during the rise of Hitler and before the Holocaust, the works of artists of different persuasions at that time and what they offered. There were only a few masterpieces in the show, but the collections there were moving. We didn't want to miss the Met Breur's Like Life with all the shocking and amazing bodies. Then we ran to the Frick for the last day of Zubaran's Jacob and his sons, giant portraits of the founders of the 12 tribes of Israel. Other days there were Grant Wood nearby at the Whitney and the Met's thoughtful Thomas Cole with paintings reminding of our three years nearby in South Hadley when Joe taught at Mt. Holyoke. I loved Cole's warnings to America at the time of Jackson's presidency!We stopped at MOMA and saw paintings by the Brazilian artist Tarsal do Amaral who wanted to paint her homeland.We made it to several gallery shows, but David Hockney's was by far the most exciting to me with his new giant digital photographs and shaped canvases. We went down to the Bowery to see the Triennial at the New Museum and learned Banksy had just been nearby. Then to Chinatown for blue and white bowls for our new blue and white dining room. 

     Joe and I had fun eating very casually at The Rocking Horse Cafe for Mexican food, Neue's Cafe Sabarsky for Viennese food, the Whitney Studio Cafe for toasts, La Bonne Soupe down from Trump Tower, the Empire Diner and Le Grainne in Chelsea near the High Line, the Oyster Bar with a stop at the New York Public Library, and Atticus in New Haven on our way to the fantastic New Britain Museum of American Art for the Prendergast brothers.  I will continue the magic with books I got for myself and the children. Joe has his thrillers. It is finally 63 degrees here and the jackets are back on their hangers!

for Linda

for the grandchildren and Linda

for the kitchen from Japan

Art Start for the New Year 2018 Brrrrr!

        After the fabulous early Christmas at 48 Stults Road, and everyone scattered, Joe and I took in some museums.

Click to enlarge

      In the spirit of family first, we headed to Salem's PEM to see the big Georgia O'Keeffe show. After all, she was head of the art department in my home town Amarillo. Someday it will be acknowledged. I was stunned by the brooch Alexander Calder made for Georgia O'Keeffe from smashed brass wire and was tempted to revisit the earrings I made from thick brass wire 50 years ago when I first saw Calder's work. I bought the fattest "gold" wire, cut off about 3 1/2" w wire cutters, twisted the wire with needle nose pliers and took a hammer to smash the shape flat atop a concrete basement floor. An anvil and better wire would have been smarter. I put on jump rings and ear clips. The procedure took only a few minutes. Gifted years ago, one person thought them gold. Pinterest has many examples and adaptations.


     Then Joe and I headed to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and later New York City, Christmas Day. Joe and David Hockney are 80 this year and Edvard Munch lived to 81. We saw lots of portraits, especially self-portraits (a good thing to paint every birthday!) I got so many ideas from Munch's paintings which had presence in subjects and backgrounds. Hockney's intelligent experiments in many media is a path close to my heart and instincts. Both had their own individual, varied style in contrast to what was hip at the time. I was also able to pick up a Kerry James Marshall catalog about his show I waited all year for and had to miss. A few more were printed HOORAY!

       In the meantime, I would say I had been very good if I didn't know better. My children gave me a 12.9" IPad Pro with Pencil which can bring a tear to the eye, but also puts the pressure on to learn the App ProCreate in more detail. Fun in my immediate future. Dog Harry's gift is the snow. He loves to romp in it. I, myself, think it is too cold to even open the refrigerator door!

Summer crafting with paint, pipes and pearls

     For vacations in NYC and Maine, I ambitiously pack art equipment, art books, novels, magazines, sewing and bead projects. But on trips, I seldom paint and color. This time I did! One afternoon, before leaving the East Wind Inn in Maine, I took out a .05 pen, water-soluble colored pencils/crayons and sketched three scenes from the upper deck. Dissatisfied and wanting to surprise, I unpacked my mini-watercolor kit, put tape around where I would paint, and threw the colors down from fully packed brushes, little dilution. I shocked my bold and happy self. I think Joe was surprised I finally used what he totes! Sketching first emboldens.

iPad painting by David Hockney

    I have had fun studying three Apps for drawing and sketching. David Hockney uses Brushes. I use it as well. I recently downloaded Procreate Pro (Procreate is free) and Paper 53 (free, click on Sketches). Perhaps one should stick to one App to learn it well. I like exploring and thought these suggestions helpful. Tutorials for apps are at YouTube. We saw Hockney's big Yosemite Suite at the Pace Gallery last month in NYC. Inspiring!  The Apps are to a painter as a Kindle is to reader?

Click to enlarge photos.

    Before the trip, Joe made Emmitt, the granddog, a wheelchair. He found directions at DIY French Bulldog wheelchair. Unfortunately, Emmitt was too weak to use it.

     The night before the girls left for camp and we left for Maine, I quickly strung some beads using magnetic clasps. Erika ended up with Hannah's as well as her own. I have been trying to teach myself again the materials to use for stringing and how to do. Use it or lose it is true, since I have lapsed in my beading efforts.
 

    Creative Maine excites with galleries, museums and nature to explore. It is almost my birthday. I am hoping to play better :*) with my Fishuku www.goldfishguitars.com. We found this in the Mars Hill Galleries. CEO Timothy Harrington has a clever company with its fish-shaped ukuleles and guitars for children and adults.

Hamsas: a blessing for Nina

   Many things happen at once. Son has taken a job in NYC. His wife's mother had a major bike accident. They just sold their house and will be off to choose a new one. Mother's Day is nigh.

Hannah 7

   Daughter-in-law is wildly busy winding up the house situation, packing, mothering, but off to see her mother on Mother's Day. I thought the children could paint hamsas scented with lavender and I would quilt them for this other grandmother. I first heard about hamsas on my visit to The Jewish Museum last week on vacation to see the Maira Kalman exhibit. The shop was closed but I asked for ideas to send to Nina who is still in hospital. I saw jewelry of hamsa design and I looked up the term on return home. I Googled "Images" of Hamsas and was partial to a stained glass pattern, but there are so many others.

Erika 5

   I made copies of hamsa patterns for the children to trace or to have a jumping off point for their own designs. I meant to TRACE their hands for signatures and flat forgot, darnit! I had ironed white fabric. Hannah, 7 and Erika, 5 chose different patterns and David, 2 worked on paper with watercolors. They left after supper; and I partially quilted the pieces, including the paper two-sided one of David's, spraying the interiors with lavender. The girls worked with Lumiere's halo and jewel color textile paints, having first placed their white fabric over the outlined designs. One could see through the white fabric. Hannah chose a teal blue  batik fabric to back hers, and Erika chose a multi-colored one. I used the two papered watercolors for front and back for David. All scented, are in separate envelopes, ready for a trip to their grandmother Nina (Nana).

David 2

click to enlarge each

A time and place for all things

Our trip to NYC was rained out so we pretended. We did in Boston what we usually do in the Big Apple. In Harvard Square we went to Ruth Rosner's opening to see her totemic sculpture, and stopped at the Coop to get the English magazines The Artist and Modern Painters. The April issue of the latter, with Hockney on the front, I am reading backwards and getting ideas. The other transports me to England for conversations on another level.

We attended Open Studios and encountered new artists and got books: The Confident Creative by Cat Bennett and The Six Archetypes of Love by Allan Hunter. After eating out and shopping and reconnecting with the grandchildren on their return from Disneyworld, it was time to organize the study further (new computer adjustments, clearing, seem endless). In the meantime, we saw Hannah's soccer game and David got his first haircut. Hopefully back to production soon. Nothing like a sunny weekend; and Otto Dix will be at Neue Gallery until August. The fantasy succeeded!