iPad Finger Painting. Making Brushes.

Shepherd’s Delight, originally uploaded by purple0wl.

I’ve had my iPad for a couple of weeks now. Still experimenting.

Compared with my iPhone, the iPad with its larger screen is certainly easier to draw on.

As a matter of fact, as far as I can see, the pictures you end up with are no larger than those on the iPhone or iPod Touch. Most artists’ finger painting apps can be used on the ipad with little alteration. They appear as a small rectangle marooned in the centre of the iPad screen.

All is not lost, however. There’s a button to double the display size and work at 2x magnification. This is easier than constantly pinching in and out, as you have to do on the smaller machines to work on detail.

This larger working size makes it easier to paint with a wide variety of brushes and fancy textures.

An app called Magic Brush will even allow you to make your own brush.

The fleece of this sheep was made in Magic Brush from a shape cut out of a photo (taken with my iphone) of some pastel paper. I could then use it just like any other brush, altering size, colour and transparency.

Magic Brush allows you to add a background to paintings made with your custom brushes. I added this sunset.

The result was then exported to a photo app called PhotoStudio, and a rusty texture added.

All was still not finished. I found I needed to alter the sheep’s legs and tail. This I did in Brushes app. To paint over the alterations, I had to emulate the rusty texture with the range of ready made but very adaptable Brushes tools.

I learned a lot!

Tags: art, brushes, creative, digital painting, DRAWING OR PAINTING ON APPLE OR ANDROID, drawing tablet, ipad, iphone camera, learn, painting, purple owl, valerie beeby