iPad2 CPencils App.

 Continuing my learning of the ins and outs of the many Art applications for the iPad, this week I chose CPencils or colored pencils. I am familiar with real colored pencils and thought I would try approaching this app with that knowledge. One has to keep in mind that this cannot be the same as any real medium you use to create.   CPencils has some but not all the qualities of those we are used to but there are many other techniques involved in a digital application.

 I quickly drew this tree before finding out much about this App, like all the icons included and you really need to know a bit more before just plunging ahead.

First I discovered that you need to choose the size in either a vertical or horizontal format. This should have been easy as one always chooses the paper size and orientation before beginning a drawing.

I am used to seeing the open screen and you just draw what ever size you want. With this iris I had opened a large 'sheet of paper', and worked on a small drawing/painting...........wrong way to work.

Also, with this work I discovered blending is only possible with the opaque/translucent icon. The largest pencil, and there are 7 different sizes for each color, is not very wide. Here the background shows the largest and I had not worked out how to blend the strokes.

There are many technical abilities with this App that I have not learned, There is not a blending tool or dry brush as other apps may have. Practice using translucency is the only way to blend and mix colors.

 The background of this picture was a blend of colors and I was attempting to make it smooth, showing no  pencil strokes. Keeping pencil strokes light seems to be the only way to work. From my habit with colored pencils, I was keeping my hand or stylus lightly on the pad and then pressing when I wanted a deeper color. Wrong, you have to change the translucent color on the palette, always keeping a light touch. There is a small palette allowing one to choose a color range. But, drawing from light to dark is all up to changing the opaqueness of each color.

I copied a colored pencil drawing in my sketch book to see if I could create a similar one on the iPad. It was close but not very accurate especially when trying to combine the pale yellow into pink petals with a sharp pink edge. I still find it hard to put a single thin line where I want it. Luckily this App has an eraser with 5 sizes but when you erase, you take away the background unless you have created the background as a separate layer.

 




 I am putting each picture on the blog without any cropping or fixing and some could really use some PhotoShop work.

This is another copy from my sketch book and obviously I chose the wrong size of paper to begin with. It is also pale compared to the way it appeared on the iPad screen.

Clicking on the Album icon a menu pops up with a New Paper icon. Tapping on the New Paper icon brings up 12 sizes of paper

You would think that after seeing the wrong size of paper several times before, I would have checked to see if I chose one that was either vertical or horizontal before I was into a new drawing. But, I didn't and since I started in the middle I didn't pay attention to the shape till it was too late for this drawing. So this poinsettia should have been drawn on a horizontal paper, instead of the vertical format. I had to cut off petals and leaves on both sides.

Looking through some photos I had taken a while ago in Waterford, VA, I chose a horizontal piece of paper (or as the App calls it, canvas) and started a drawing loosely based on the photo. I put the sky in a separate layer so if I erased anything, I wouldn't take the sky as well. Trying to replace color you have erased with the original is not always easy.

In the layers section, you can lower one layer and raise another and then combine the two

In this last picture I again copied from a drawing I had  in a Sketch Book. I chose a vertical format but a too large one as I went into the tools at the top where it would not color. I made the scene in the window on a separate layer in case I needed to erase the window section.

 This App has an Album page so you can see your past drawings completed with CPencils. Also, included is an information page written in both Japanese and English that does cover all the icons on the App.

 There are undo and redo arrows, a way to enlarge and minimize the drawing area as well as rotate and return to normal or default position.

I have much more to learn with this application and will continue with it as it is fairly simple to use. Especially if I pay attention to the lessons of the past drawings, like paper size. With each drawing I learned something new and know that this will continue.