Posted tagged ‘iPad art’
Still thinking about bin Laden (though I’d just as soon not)
May 4, 2011
My brain is still reeling over the death of bin Laden, still caught in a very strong mix of feelings, all much much more somber than jubilant. Robert Klitzman, the brother of a victim of the 9/11 attacks, writes an op-ed piece, “My Sister, My Grief,” in today’s New York Times that encapsulates some of these mixed feelings–a kind of relief that the U.S. has finally accomplished its specific mission, a re-awakened grief for the specific deaths and losses of 9/11 as well as for the decade of deaths and war, a worry about reaction chains of violence (both past ones, such as the war in Iraq, and future ones) and, underneath all of that, concern about the hatred and history and misunderstanding, manipulation, greed, prejudice, and genuine disagreements, that continue to divide and menace the world and that are a lot more powerful than a single man.
I’ve been thinking a lot too about the specifics of Obama’s mission. Even as a pacifist, a long-term vegetarian, someone who just abhors the idea of killing, I realize that any capture of bin Laden, attempted trial, would have been a nightmare, likely leading to hostage taking around the world.
All these concerns make me very glad not to be involved in politics, not to be one of the people making these types of decisions. Last night just thinking about it, I wanted to get back to something simple, down to earth.
What I came up with was bread. Rolls just out of the oven, still on a rather corroded baking sheet. That’s what those lumps up there are supposed to be.
Thinking About Different Things…errr…the Same Things
May 3, 2011
Reporters, yesterday, described “relief” as the primary emotion experienced by those interviewed at the World Trade Center site about the capture and killing of bin Laden. I live right next to the World Trade Center site, and a part of me does feel a kind of relief over these events. There’s another part of me, however, that can only put the words “relief” and “the face of terrorism” into a single sentence if I also add in the phrase “just not think about it.” Example: ‘the only way I can feel relief in the face of terrorism is to just not think about it.”
The fact is that if you live down here, and pass the site every day, you really do have to make an effort to banish past and possibly future events from your mind and to just go on with your daily activities.
In my case, these activities have lately involved goofing around on the iPad or iPhone, especially with the great painting app “Brushes”, and more recently with the photo app, “Photogene.” Above is a painting of lilacs that I made with the Brushes App using a real photograph as a visual model. I then deleted the photograph (it had been a separate “layer” in the painting), and saved my own painting as a photo. That’s what’s above.
I then pulled the painting/photo up on Photogene, which offers a bunch of cool filters to adjust it. Below is the same painting, filtered as a “comic.”
Not perhaps a great art, but a great way of occupying the mind.
P.S. – These pictures got cropped a bit weirdly in the upload to WordPress! One of the hazards of working digitally.
IPad Art, Brushes App, Photogene, Lots of Options – Elephant/Pony Show
May 1, 2011
If you like to play at art-making, as I do, the iPad offers lots and lots of ways of wasting time.
There are many art apps. The one I know is the Brushes App (also used with great success by David Hockney.) My lack of knowledge of all the intricacies of the App also requires me to combine it with a great photo App called Photogene, which includes editing, framing, and filtering tools.
One of the big keys to using the Brushes App is the use of layers, which allows you to change backgrounds and foregrounds and details. The iPad Brushes App allows for at least six of these; they can be deleted, added, put in front or behind one another, allowing for a lot of change and adaptation.
Photogene has these wonderful filters which allow you to completely change the highlighting and coloring of a drawing.
At any rate, some variations below:
National Poetry Month – Day 30 – “End of National Poetry Month Haiku”
April 30, 2011
"April is the cruelest month" (version filtered on Photogene)
End of National Poetry Month Haiku
Some say that April is the
cruelest month. They must
be people who write poems.
All rights reserved. Suggestions welcomed. Thanks much for checking in on all the draft poems this month!
"April is the cruelest month." (Unfiltered.)
National Poetry Month – Day 29 – Royal Couplet
April 29, 2011
National Poetry Month – Day 28 – “Relic”
April 28, 2011
Relic
Poets write of rust, decay, time wearing out or thin,
but time’s spin makes for a preciousness too, imparts
like dew, an aura, as seen around
Ty Cobb’s dentures, still firm, at The Baseball Hall
of Fame, George Washington’s at Mt. Vernon.
Even the belongings of the obscure
acquire the gild of treasure–the small green
rubber boots bought as a joke for my dog
found fifty years later in my mother’s garage.
And then there are objects that become relics
even before time’s passage. I think of
the chocolate Easter egg, kept in the freezer, that my grandmother took a nibble
from every night before her fall; she’d gotten less than
half-way through; my mother saved the remainder, still foil-wrapped
in blue, for years afterwards, the surface of the
chocolate whitening like the cataract over an eye, making it
harder and harder to see what was once so clearly
in front of you.
All rights reserved. Suggestions welcome.
Happy Easter (from iPad 2)
April 24, 2011
With a combination of apps, I am slowly learning to do things on a digital device that are much much easier with good old-fashioned paints and paper, What fun!
Happy Easter! Happy Spring!
National Poetry Month – Day 22- “How to draw an elephant”
April 23, 2011
National Poetry Society – 21st Day – “Ah (in the Savanna)”
April 22, 2011
A visual poem? A busy day. Happy weekend all!
ManicDDaily 
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