Alas, all good things must come to an end. This is the final entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet. Sob! 
This week's entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet is a super-quickie, because it's my husband's birthday & we spent last night doing some advance celebrating. 
This week's entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet.
This week's entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet.
Between that crazy earthquake & Hurricane Irene, Virginians have endured more than their share of our planet's little tantrums lately. I hope there are no more unpleasant surprises in store any time soon for our neighbor state (or its eponymous 'possums).
I have been collecting ephemera for a very long time, & usually can work out what things are, but today I had a Fleam Find that puzzles & intrigues me. Does anyone have a clue what these notes might be about? They all seem to involve color & historical events. At first I thought it might be stamp descriptions, but then what are all the grain measurements about? (Or is there perhaps a currency abbreviated gr? I couldn't find one.) 
When I was hunting down U animals for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet, I saw the Ulysses butterfly & immediately thought of the novel by James Joyce, one of my all-time favorite books. 
This week's entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet.
This week's entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet goes out to my niece, Robin. 
This week's entry for Ben Towle'sAnimal Alphabet is the Quindio Glass Frog. 
Despite temps nearing 100 & rain threatening, I had a splendid morning at the Fleam: I found some great old textbooks & ephemera for cheap, as well as a handsome Visible Man model with at least most of his dainty little parts intact.
This week's entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet goes out to Allison Sommers, painter, pigeon protectress & purveyor of the priceless Pigeon Trading Post. 
... & obvious. I admit I cheated a bit on this weeks entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet, by using an old drawing, white gouache on black paper, retweaked a bit in Photoshop.
This week's entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet is the numbat. Thanks to Isaac Cates for suggesting this odd & elegant marsupial!
This week's entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet is the Mandrill. This one demanded color & I only had time for a quickie, so it's completely digital (Photoshop.) I'd really love to work this up to a full-fledged painting someday.
This week's entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet is the Lacewing. 
I'm friends with several lovely New Zealanders (none of whom I've met in person, but I still feel as though I know them!) so my choice for K in Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet was a natural. 
For reasons best left to psychiatric specialists, I've decided to start yet another blog! This one is called "Oddments & Curiosities." It will post on odd days, & feature odd creatures such as those you see here. Or completely different-- I really have no idea. You'll have to follow to find out! ;-)
Ben Towle, the creator of the wonderful web comic Oyster War, also runs a weekly challenge called The Animal Alphabet Project. I'm a bit late to the party, but I do love drawing beasties, so here's my first contribution.
Beginning next month I will be taking a class in Flash animation. In preparation I've been working on ways to simplify my art style drastically, so as not to go entirely crazy when I have to do a whole bunch of drawings of the same subject. %} Here's one of my efforts, which is actually part of a quasi-animation test I did in Photoshop. Unfortunately, every time I try to export/render to video, it crashes my computer! So, for now, the still will have to do. (You're not missing much, I promise.)
For the next few posts, I'll be reviewing my experiments with various iPad paint apps. I'd very much welcome comments, corrections & tips if you have experience with these apps, or any questions if you are looking into the subject yourself.
Ease of use
Let's get to the bad news first. This is NOT a snappy, carefree painting experience. There is a notorious lag effect while painting, which I found very annoying at times even though my painting style is naturally far from speedy. Some promising features are actually rendered nearly useless due to the painfully slow response. And while anyone can intuitively grasp the basics of mark-making here, it will take considerable time, study & experimentation to learn how to get the most of the many options, by which point you may be pulling your hair out with impatience. The speed issue is by far the WORST FEATURE of this app. Admittedly I don't really know much about programming, but I get the strong feeling that the developers have bitten off more than they can chew here, at least given the current technology of the iPad. I do find that performance improves somewhat by saving super-frequently, closing & reopening the app regularly, & restarting the iPad once in a while. Also, if you're the kind of artist who uses only one layer to paint, you may achieve better results.
To the developers' credit, the in-app help menu is exceptionally thorough & useful, & their website offers a wealth of additional info, though the forums can be a bit confusing since they include comments on desktop versions of ArtRage.
Brushes
Now let the good news begin! ArtRage boasts a generous array of tools, and an almost mind-boggling number of luxuriously paint-like effects. Even with the lag, it's just FUN to explore mark-making with this app. Strokes can mimic markers, pastels, oils or watercolors, endlessly loaded or dry brushes, various amounts of thinner... the list of options & combinations is nearly endless, & there are fascinating effects to discover. For instance, a pen tool that I'd all but ignored at first turned out to have an elegant custom-taper option that mimics hand-inked lines better than any other iPad app I've tried. And I still haven't really scratched the surface of possibilities here. Without a doubt, the brushes are this app's BEST FEATURE.
Layers
And the riches continue with an infinite (!) number of layers & a truly impressive array of blending effects. The layer tools are nearly as versatile as the brushes, allowing visibility toggle, precise transparency settings, & even transparency locking, a hugely useful tool, unexpected in an iPad app. A drop menu offers still more options, including canvas & lighting settings that make for immense control over the finished look. The layer transform feature is the one major dud here, due to the dreaded lag, which makes it almost impossible to control with any finesse. Still, a very useful layer menu overall. I might even have picked layers as the best feature, if it weren't for the additional lag that each new layer seems to add.
Color
The color picker is handy: it remains visible at all times, unless you choose to hide it with a tap on the "pod", or if you are painting in that corner, when it automatically vanishes. There is a unique "metallic" setting, possible because of ArtRage's lighting effects. There is a separate eyedropper tool, & a "sampler" saves colors for future use.
Imports
ArtRage offers two styles of imports: one that opens a "pinned snapshot" for reference, & one that provides a separate layer that can be incorporated into the art. Both draw on saved photos & photo library. Resizing/transforming the layer import is a major exercise in frustration, so best to modify the size before importing.
Saves & Exports
Alas, here we come to another serious flaw. There is no autosave, though there is a save prompt that can be activated in settings. Also, in my experience, attempting to save a complex piece can result in a crash, sometimes with all unsaved work lost. In general, ArtRage seems more crash-prone than any other app I've tried. Saving super-frequently is a good idea for that reason, & helps with speed & reliability as well. The save menu does offer several convenient options, including save copy. Once saved, images can be exported from the gallery to Photo Album, Email or Print.
Gallery
The gallery itself is strangely lackluster, with images too small to look impressive for display, yet too large to see many choices at once. The mid-gray background makes for a generally dull effect.
Overall
Well, what can I say. This app aimed for greatness, & oh, how I wish it had succeeded. The astonishing wealth of features is a tantalizing golden dream that never quite became reality. Perhaps someday the developers will find a way to solve the lag & crashing issues. Maybe future versions of iPad will prove more compatible for my work. But at present, ArtRage seems more suitable for loose, alla-prima style paintings that take advantage of the many paint textures rather than works that demand many layers. I've done quite a bit of dabbling, & enjoyed myself thoroughly for a while each time, but whenever I tried to create a piece in my own style, the lag or crash issues worked up my own bout of art rage. A sad ending, at least for now.
You can find more iMad Scientist paintings & reviews here.
For the next few posts, I'll be reviewing my experiments with various iPad paint apps. I'd very much welcome comments, corrections & tips if you have experience with these apps, or any questions if you are looking into the subject yourself.
For the next few posts, I'll be reviewing my experiments with various iPad paint apps. I'd very much welcome comments & tips if you have experience with these apps, or any questions if you are looking into the subject yourself.
For the next few posts, I'll be reviewing my experiments with various iPad paint apps. I'd very much welcome comments & tips if you have experience with these apps, or any questions if you are looking into the subject yourself.
Tech-phobes beware: inspired by the IF prompt "Toy" I've decided it's finally time to put aside my ink-stained Luddite ways & share my thoughts about my favorite, magical new toy/torture device: the iPad. I received it as a surprise Christmas gift, for which I'm enormously grateful because I would never have bought one for myself, & now I'm completely addicted to this brilliant little package of wonders. It's the perfect size, just like a sketchbook, easy to use on lap, desk, or cafe table (even in bed-- & no paint spills! -though I try not to do that too often). It's not feather-weight, but still relatively easy to lug around, & full of possibilities.
And now for something completely different! In honor of National Drink Wine Day* (or actually in defiance of it, since this was an unauthorized use) I had the notion to do a little sketch using wine as a medium. It was a new experience for me (though I have painted with coffee before). I used some cheap Cabernet Sauvignon on Bristol board, applied with a 10x0 watercolor brush. (The image is roughly 4x5".) The wine right out of the bottle gave a pale grey-violet effect. I wanted to be able to darken some areas, so I tried condensing it for a bit in the microwave. Interestingly, this not only darkened & thickened the "ink" but also caused it to retain its original reddish color, at least long enough for a scan. Further experiments are in order, but first I must answer my country's call & drink some of this stuff. Cheers!
I've been experimenting with sketching quick little characters (who may eventually be animated!!) & this one seemed appropriate for today. I always liked the saying "cold hands, warm heart" (maybe because my hands are often cold), so this week's IF prompt made me think of dressing a little heart guy up in a nice warm sweater.
I can hardly believe it, but I'm nearly finished with the book! Not quite though, because I'm a crazed tweaker. It's especially hard to let go of a series, because whenever I look back at a piece with fresh eyes I always see something I want to change! But at some point you just have to surrender.
