Phone app upgraded

Magic Doodle  Premium, Android app on Droid phone.

On the left is the cup I did yesterday with a lot of difficulty. After downloading an upgrade to the app, I tried drawing again. On the right is the cup I did today. The upper rim of the cup which gave me so much trouble yesterday, was easier today. Whatever was done in the new upgrade, made it so much easier to see where I was putting down lines.
The developer of this app also rearranged the color palettes to put them in order so the colors are easier to find.

Thank you Etienne, this app gets better and better!

Peonies in the Park

Peonies in the Park -029, 4x6", watercolor

Yesterday, my friend Anjali & I painted at a local park with a large bed of red peonies.

Those flowers were beautiful!

I'd like to go back there again before they fade.

Phone sketching is ROUGH!!!!

This morning we went out to breakfast. While waiting for our food, I tried sketching my coffee cup.

Wow! It was so hard to control where lines started and stopped and even where they went.

The top of this cup took 4 attempts to get those 3 colors to sit where they are.

This next one was just playing with stick figures.

Schaumburg Plein Air workshop - Final day

We were in Busse Woods near the boat ramp. It was 90+ deg, notthe best day for being away from air conditioning!

I did 2 paintings today. The first was a nice tranquil onelooking over the lake. Worked on this for about 3 hours.

Lake Study 024, 8x10” oils

The second was after lunch. Challenged myself to do this onein 45 minutes with a palette knife.

This sky study was interesting. Each time I looked up, theclouds were in a different formation!

Sky Study 024, 8x10” oils

Schaumburg Plein Air workshop - Day 3

This is the corner of a commercial bldg in town. I was standingon the sidewalk of a busy 4-lane road. The straight wide road was often actingas a wind-tunnel so my pochade box was doing a lots of moving!

I was attracted to the way the sun hit the face of thisbuilding and the streetlamp in the parking lot while the front flowers were inthe shade of a tree.

I’m happy with this painting. I particularly like the looseway the lamp, purple flowers and window turned out.

33 Roselle Rd, 8x10" oils

Schaumburg Plein Air workshop - Day 2

Day 2 of my local plein air workshop.

Today we wandered thru a very old neighborhood and happenedupon a wonderful old cottage garden. Lots of well established old-time flowerslike red peonies, purple flocks and orange poppies.

Luck was with us, we got permission to paint in that garden.

What drew me to this subject was the way the peonies seemedto glow in the sunlight.

Here is today’s painting while still in the garden.

After a critique at the end of the day, I went home and didsome touch ups and small additions. Here is the final painting.

Peonies & Iris, 16x20” oil

 

Schaumburg Plein Air workshop - Day 1

Today was the first day of a 4-day plein air (painting outdoors) workshop.

It was a gray day that kept threatening rain.

In the morning, we set up under the gazebo.

This is my morning painting. It's 8x10" oils on canvas panel.

 Local painter, Frankie Johnson, taught today’s class. Themain keys I got from her were contrast and simplicity.

I also tried to keep in mind what Tom Trausch, another localpainter, told me: remember the purpose of the painting.

I simplified a lot. But I think because of that &keeping focused on the iris, this is the first in a long time that I’ve likedone of my PAs when it was done.

It was a gray, overcast day with frequent rain but we were under a large gazebo so it worked out okay.

Luckily the weather forecast for the other 3 days of theworkshop is sunny.

e-fingerpainting on my phone

Trying to draw on my phone with my finger. 

This poor tree is my second attempt at e-fingerpainting. 

e-fingerpainting on the phone

I stopped during my errands this morning and tried a plein air in a new medium, my phone.
This morning I tried out the Android app Magic Doodle Pro on my Verizon Droid phone. 

From my limited experimenting with this app, the pros and cons of this are:
PROS: 
I’ve always got the app with me so I can paint anytime.
This is the height of stealth plein air. No one could tell I was painting. Looked like I was playing on my phone.
This app could zoom in & out. Had varying brushes and brush sizes.
App has way to email pictures so I can get the finished painting off the phone.

CONS:
The soft brush was too fuzzy. The hard-edged brush is better but will take some figuring out how to use it better. This painting was done with both brushes. You can see the difference.
It will take practice to set the brush down in the right place as my finger is always in the way!
The color palette is not set out in any logical order. While outside, it can be difficult to see what the colors on the palette are. And not being in a chromatic order doesn’t help.

This app has possiblilities but is going to take quite a bit of practice to achieve anything worthwhile.
It would be good for quick, thumbnail value sketches.

Overall, worth the $2 spent on the app and I’ll be playing with it more.
I’m also going to send these comments to the developer. He seems to be very responsive to suggestions.