iPad2 ArtStudio App.

This is the fifth art application I have worked with on my iPad. ArtStudio App has more and varied tools and nuances of any App I have worked with before and I have not discovered all of them, yet. With this applicaion you can paint almost any image you care to with the many tools that give you texture and more. In this first 'made up' vase I was fascinated with the tube icon. After deciding on a color and width and translucency you start making marks and lines appear with a highlight or lighter color down the center of the line. It looks like you have squirted out a line of paint from a tube and have a strong highlight.

In my second picture I started using a few

 of the other tools. The drawing tool has 5

different variations and here I have used two of them. The simple line variation has width as well as

translucency and opaque abilities. These are the only way to blend colors. There is a smudge tool but it seems to just move one color in one direction into another color, not really blending. Another of the drawing tool variations is multiple dots which I used in purple. The tool creates stripes, any width you set up but I was taken with the dots.

Choose a format and size before you begin.

I used two layers for this palm tree view. For the first layer with a blue sky (really bright and intense in Palm Springs where I took a photo of this scene) I used the spray paint tool.....wide and only slightly opaque. I knew I would be erasing to keep these tall trunks narrow and didn't want to keep replacing the sky. I went back to the simple line drawing tool for the palms. Colors seem to have greater contrast on the iPad screen than here on the computer.

Again using one layer for a background I used  the paint brush tool with quite a translucent setting and kept changing colors. I was after a soft paint looking background. On the next layer I used the drawing tool for the bowl and tulips.

All the vases of flowers I'm showing are made up. I need to copy an image or photograph to put an App to a test of what I can do. Otherwise one can just play and have fun seeing what can happen with any of the tools on each App.



This vase was copied from a picture of a silver pitcher. I wasn't able, through color, to indicate metal on my first trial. I always marveled at the Flemish and Dutch still-life paintings where metal, glass, and textiles were so beautifully rendered. To create metal I will need to spend a lot more time working on exact lights and darks with crisp lines and I think it is possible. However I still have a problem putting down a single line exactly where I want it. This picture, again used two layers.

Using a photograph I took of poppies in Levining, California I tried to create the paper like petals that are so evident on poppies. On the first or background layer I blended several greens with the wet brush tool in a translucent mode. The pods were created with the brush tool in its horizontal lines feature. The poppy itself used the drawing tool in both single line and dot mode.

Another attempt at copying a photograph with my own background. I wanted a complement color and used the paint brush tool for the gold background. The flowers were created mainly with the drawing tool but I tried many others for texture. There is a wonderful palette where you can obtain variations of color after you have chosen a single intense color.

I took this painting from a photograph I took of two pears on a purplish cloth. As I said there is no blending tool so the smooth blnding of color has to come from regulating  the opaqueness of the variable colors chosen. The photo was taken at night with a strong highlight that kind of washed out the redness of the pears. There needs to be a heavier shadow to make them sit on the cloth.

In this last picture I copied a part of a photograph Dolley Newcomb took in 2001 of the Autumn Color of the Sandia Mountains. I found the air brush tool with a very translucent amount of color was the perfect way to depict skies with clouds. I should have discovered this earlier. This picture used 4 layers. Occasionally the layer would stop me from adding something so I added another layer. Drawing tools, air brush tools, dot tools and single lines were use to create the painting. There is much more I need to learn about ArtStudio as I think, like any medium, practise and experience are the most important inredients.