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Digital Madness, Indeed

by Audra Arr | Mar 3, 2017 | Art

My iPad has saved me, lately. Actually, being able to create digital art has saved me. Things have been rather chaotic at home due to some projects going on. If I say, “I’m so excited”, about what’s on the horizon in my world, that bleepin’ song will get stuck in my head.

Aw, damn.

Okay, I *AM* excited, though I can’t share exactly why just yet. Suffice to say, something big is upcoming, and I can’t wait to share!

Good Fences Make…

So, I have a, shall we say, “eccentric” neighbor who, within six months of moving in behind us, tore down the fence between our properties. This proved to be problematic, for a number of reasons, so we’ve had to focus on fixing a few things around the property. Sadly, my studio has become a casualty of the home improvement project, so I can’t paint right now. This tends to wear on me after a while, so I “get my fix” by creating digital art on my iPad. Easy enough, right? Right. Until I realized my stylus was lost in the madness, too.

No Stylus, No Problem

Okay, admittedly, I was very put out when I couldn’t find my stylus. Yes, it’s a First World problem, but my mental health becomes somewhat dependent on my creating art every once in awhile.

So, I improvised. I actually, GASP, used my fingers. I digitally finger-painted. <tee hee>

When I first began making digital art, it was before I owned a tablet, so I’d start with a pencil or pastel drawing I had done, scan it, then went to town manipulating it on my laptop. Eventually I bought a tablet, so I started drawing on it to create a “seed” file, then used various programs to create five or six different iterations of the original piece.

Seed of Cityscape

Cityscape variant 1

Cityscape variant 2

A Tablet by Any Other Name

I enjoyed my Samsung Galaxy Note 10, when it worked. Samsung had to replace it after a few months because it stopped charging. There was one app in particular I really liked to create with, but when my replacement tablet stopped charging 18 months later (conveniently after the warranty expired), I decided that Samsung tablets were troublesome, and switched to the iPad. It’s taken a little getting used to, as, obviously, the same apps aren’t always available across platforms, but created some artwork I’ve liked.

Wednesday night I started playing around, using my favorite color, red, as my background, and produced this. And this. And this. And this.

I ended up creating 21 different versions of the original. The bottom line is I enjoyed going “primitive” with my tablet, and am very please with the results, the remainder of which will be uploaded to the site and/or my online shop within the week.

*to learn more about the apps I used to create this digital art, consider becoming a patron of the arts on Patreon! You’ll have access to exclusive content available only to those who contribute as little as $1 a month!

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