iMad Scientist: Procreate iPad App Review

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.

This image, "Springy" was created using Procreate with the Nomad Brush. The spring diagrams in the background are from a vintage technical book, scanned & imported into photos. (Please click for a full-size view.)

This app has some very appealing characteristics, but in its current incarnation, it doesn't quite suit my style, as I'll explain below.

Ease of Use
By the time I picked up Procreate, I'd already worked with several apps, so I'm not sure how it would strike a newbie, but it seemed fairly straightforward to me, & the developers offer a very helpful pdf user's manual to help work out any mysteries. The app works smoothly with none of the lag I've experienced with some others, & from what I've heard, user support is unparalleled.
The undo/redo depth is outstanding, allowing for 100 levels! The non-interpolated 3200% zoom is easy to use, fast, & allows great precision. This is probably my second-favorite feature of the app.

Brushes
Procreate has 8 built-in brush shapes, & is unique among paint apps (as far as I know) in allowing the user to create or import custom brush shapes & textures. This goes not only for the brush per se but also erasers & smudge tools. This is without a doubt the app's BEST FEATURE & would make it a favorite for brushes if not for one serious limitation: there is no minimum radius adjustment, so creating a tapered, precisely shaped brushstroke is all but impossible. (There is the ability to adjust radius to speed, but only to a degree, & control is iffy.) Even if you don't use tapered brushstrokes, a minimum radius feature would be extremely useful for better eraser control. There are, however, interesting adjustment possibilities for texture scale & shape rotation, as well as scatter, fall-off & spacing.

Layers
The layers palette is unusually deep for an iPad app, allowing for a luxurious 16 layers. It's fairly easy to handle when it comes to merges (down OR up), reordering, clearing, transforming & duplicating layers.
Alas, it falls short in blending effects. Only opacity can be adjusted: no multiply or screen functions here. When I work in non-digital media I use a lot of glaze effects, so when working digitally I'm a huge fan of multiply, the digital equivalent of a dark glaze. That makes this limitation the app's WORST FEATURE as far as I'm concerned. Luckily, according to the developers, future upgrades may add blending effects, & in any case, if you are an alla prima type, their absence might not bother you at all.

Color
The palette offers a large color-chooser & HSB sliders. The palette is easily accessible & the tap-hold eyedropper feature works fairly reliably, though it seems it will only sample from the active layer. {Edit: Please see my comment below.} Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a swatch palette, so it's not possible to save favorite colors.

Imports
Procreate allows you to import multiple images from your saved photos or photo library, & to flip these (as well as your working canvas) horizontally & vertically, in addition to scaling.

Saves & Exports
Auto-saves & also makes it easy to save the file or a copy of the file at will without much fuss. You can also duplicate the file in the gallery, or export via e-mail.

Gallery
The gallery is elegant & simple in design, with large images against a dark gray ground. You can really only see one image at a time, but it's fairly easy to scroll through.

Overall
I have high hopes for this app. It's the newest on the market & the developers seem extremely responsive. I have a feeling that in the future, with a few developer tweaks, it will become a favorite. Currently, though, it's not the dream app I'd hoped for.

You can find more iMad Scientist paintings & reviews here.

Rootacles

As I was sketching out ideas for Goodly Creature, these rootacles just emerged, seemingly without any intention at all on my part. It's surprising how often this happens. That's why (for me at least) it only works to think on paper, whether with I'm dealing with words or images. For some reason the act of mark-making seems to bypass my conscious mind, & allows me to think much more openly. I rarely have more than a vague shadow of an idea before touching pen or pencil to paper. This may be a right-brain/left-brain thing, but for me it happens almost as much with language as with image. What do you think? Does mark-making have the same effect on you?

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below. You can also see Goodly in his final assembled state on my main blog, Curious Art.

Tendril Twists & Turns

I have a severe fixation on tendrils. I can't explain it-- I just love them. My passionflower vine, for instance, with insanely rambunctious tendrils reaching out every which way & fiercely latching onto anything handy-- clearly it has a diabolical plan to take over the universe, & it's pretty much accomplished Phase One: Leah's garden-- but I forgive all its thuggish characteristics when I see those outlandish curlicues doing their flourishy thing. (Despots always know how to play on our weaknesses!)

I have a tendency to overdose on tendrils in my artwork too-- it's a trait I keep meaning to rein in, but much like the passionflower, it's proven too vigorous for my powers of control.

But as I was sketching Goodly Creature, I thought I had the perfect excuse for a pair of tendrils: they could create a nice double helix, thus reinforcing the genetic theme! Yay!

Only when I was painting them I was very very tired (this piece has been something of a studio marathon) & I ended up getting the crisscrosses mixed up, & my carefully-planned, scientifically justifiable symbol turned into a random tendril-tangle. Much like my garden... & yes, perhaps my mind.

Oh, well. Goodly's a bit of a random fellow in general, so I guess it's not entirely inappropriate that his helices lost their way. But the Tendril Druthers still haunt me a little.

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

Trumpetvine

This is Goodly Creature's right hand... er, appendage. I'm honestly not sure how the trumpet got in there. I didn't consciously think "trumpet vine" until I was titling the image file, but my head often generates visual/verbal puns without asking me first.

Druthers:
The text for this one, a page from Genetics & Eugenics, was almost totally obliterated by paint, which sometimes happens in the pursuit of more dramatic lighting effects. One of the disadvantages of paint over Photoshop... you can't play with lighting & contrast forever & still hang onto transparency. If I were doing it over I'd have planned the lighting a bit better so as to preserve the text. Oh well.

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below. You can also see Goodly in his final assembled state on my main blog, Curious Art.

Nonodactyly

Polydactyly is the possession of additional fingers. Nonodactyly is the possession of nine. (Okay, I made that word up, but it makes linguistic sense.) You may note that Goodly didn't have any bonus digits in the sketch. They were inspired by the text I used for this segment, a treatise on genetics & eugenics that includes the words "increased number of fingers." I've always wondered if polydactyly would be beneficial. Fingers seem like very handy things, especially if you play a musical instrument. I suspect the genotechnology of the future could easily arrange for a few extras.


Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

Goodly Shroombelly

This is the central portion of Goodly Creature. As you may already have suspected, he is a creature of multifarious parts. Some are decidedly shroomy.

I hasten to assure you that my fixation with mushrooms is botanical, gastronomical, folkloric, aesthetic, & nostalgic. My dad has always been an enthusiastic collector of edible wild mushrooms (he has just planted a truffle farm!), & when I was young I spent a Christmas in Denmark, where the magic mushroom (Amanita muscaria, a.k.a. fly agaric) was as emblematic of the season as holly is in the U.S. Isn't that curious? ;) Ever since then I've had a warm feeling for those cheerily spotted fungi.


Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

Head Shot

This is a very-nearly-finished state of Goodly's head. All the colors have been built up as I described before (paint-blot-repeat) with glazes of Golden fluid acrylic, sometimes mixed with open medium, sometimes just with water, depending on the effect I was after. Each area of the painting has at least 4 or 5 layers of paint. Even the whites are laid on thin in multiple glazes. The finished surface is quite smooth.


Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

Ghostly Presence

After scanning in my sketch & refining, roughly coloring, & working out the collage elements in Photoshop, I print out the collage base (I have an archival Epson printer & I use archival paper as well) & begin adding the earliest glazes. Before I collage it to the canvas I want the border colors in so that they don't end up puddling over the edges, & the main figure colors so I know I'm off on the right track before committing it to canvas. So I usually begin with light, thin glazes, again painting/blotting/drying until the basic colors are blocked in.

Then I glue it down with Golden Open Gel.

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" tab.

Starting Block

This is usually my first step... painting the "frames" on deep-edge canvas. For Goodly Creature I'm using 6, each one 6x6 inches. As you can see here, my painting style is all about layers. I use Golden Fluid Acrylics mixed with Open Medium, building up the texture by painting with a wide brush, then blotting, drying & painting again until I like the effect. The unfinished center part will be covered by the collage elements.

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

Some Assembly Required

As I was sketching the Creature Soon To Be Known As Goodly, I realized his slinky figure wouldn't fit comfortably on any of the standard canvas sizes. At first I was thinking I'd stretch my own in a taller format, but then as his arms began to grow, I realized that wouldn't quite work either. Then it dawned on me that I could make a sort of patchwork of small canvases. I was quite tickled with this notion since it seemed to fit the patchwork mode of his genetic bits & pieces, & also it was something I've never done before, which always makes me happy.

In the sketch you can see me brainstorming ideas for joining the elements, including a hinged version, which I decided wouldn't quite work for this project, but I'm definitely going to try it someday! In the end though I decided to join it with corner braces, as you can see here. Once it is permanently assembled, I may reinforce it with a wooden brace as well if needed, but this does the basic job.

More on this project soon!

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

Institute of Genotechnics

I've been mining my collection of texts for goodies to include in the collage elements of the new piece, & I found this great ad which I'd scanned from an old Mechanics Illustrated:


















These zoobotanical creatures are the result of extensive genetic engineering, so I did a bit of pixel engineering in Photoshop.




















You will see this again in later posts, showing the collage state, but most of it will be obliterated by paint in the end... I'm glad I'm keeping progress shots from this one!

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

Zoorobotany

For quite a while now I've had this word in my head... describing some of the creatures that inhabit my sketchbooks, part animal, part vegetable, part mechanical. I'm working on a piece right now that I hope will be the first in a series of paintings based on this theme.

Here's my initial sketch of a fellow I call Goodly Creature after the Shakespeare quote from the Tempest:

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world,
That has such people in it!

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

p.s. This is the very first time I've shared my personal sketchbook with the world! It's a bit scary.