Tiny adventures with Artflow

Michael Nobbs encouraged us to take tiny adventures this week for SketchbookSkool. I used this opportunity to finally use and play with the Artflow App forAndroid and over the course of the week dabbling with it for 20-30 mins a go, learned how to use it.

 

Started this by drawing very quickly on the wobbly train and discovered smudging and the brush option. Couldn't fathom how to fill the object but the hair made me like this sketch.

Decided to sketch but wanted to add blocks of colour to get more of a graphic feel - did a sketch and then practiced trying to draw things to fill - something I found very tricky.

Finally discovered how to use the camera and add layers (by this time I had paid for the app). Filling and background was still an option and sadly I pasted the layers including the photo so it peeks through unintentionally. By now I had worked out how to use the pipette to copy a shade of colour from the underlying photo.

Sabine Wisman had encouraged us to try taking our artwork and digitising it by importing it as a photo and adding a layer to trace it. I decided to take this sketch below I did for Penelope Dullaghan's class as the source. I wanted it to feel more graphic-art-like so I didn't only copy it. I also got rid of the original drawing layer.

I then went back to plain sketching because I wasn't entirely moved by the photos but I didn't feel I had full control of the pen or painting the colours. But blocks of colours once I had managed to 'close' the line were quite striking. This type of sketch was a nice mix of sketching and graphics.

I decided to take the photo but this time play with different brush strokes. I also didn't try too hard to trace it. The stylus doesn't give me much accuracy and so I decided not to fight this. I had fun exploring the brick work to make it better.

Finally I worked out how to make the background colour work and drew this without caring too much about the lines (again tracing from a photo). I didn't think I liked this initially, but in the end it grew on me.

This is just another tool (like watercolours/pastels/lino etc.) and playing with it helps you work out how you want to use it. A week of playing with it has made me enjoy it more than I realised. Plus, when I printed it out to make the 'big adventure', I was really pleased with the results. 

PS.

• I discovered how to use the mirroring tool
• If you want to draw portrait in Artflow (it's set to landscape) - just ignore the menus and adapt. I used it for portrait most of the time.
• I also tried Sketchbook app after this and the learning curve wasn't very steep. Once you get the hang of one, it seems less daunting.

Mark making adventures with carbon paper and acrylics

Paint the reverse painting on carbon paper with acrylic

This week's klass on SketchbookSkool's  Expressing Klass  was by Penny Dullaghan. She spoke of experimenting with mark-making and how one sentence about Paul Klee had led her to experiment with a new technique with oil paints. I won't tell you what that was as you can join the class to find out. But one sentence she said struck me - acrylics dry too quickly. Now I'm impatient.

After a bit of experimenting in the morning and then letting things burble (see last image) I ended up using acrylics as a form of masking/stencilling.

I painted a scene (remember it will be the reverse on paper) with red acrylic on carbon paper.

1. I used it without it drying too much to see ... (with pencil marks)
 

2. then darker marks using a biro

3. then used the biro to fill it in a bit - wasn't too sure about red marks tried to make some into flowers

Now that the paint was dry, I tried again for a more ghostly effect

And then again on a paper with a bad acrylic wash (very impatient)

This shows all the experiments earlier in the day