Drawing Apps for iPad

I have a lot of apps for drawing and sketching on my iPad. I think I'm hoping that I will find that ONE app that will make me a great artist. Lol! As much as there's an app for pretty much everything, I really doubt there's an app for that. It's just going to take a lot of practice drawing and drawing and drawing. It's like knitting, you can't knit one row and expect to be perfect.

Sketchclub - great for all around sketching. It has text and vector drawing capabilities. Import to other apps with transparency for more editing. Great to use as a photoediting app as well. Great friendly user interface and easy to learn. Files can be easily imported through iTunes or photoshop for editing and printing.

Artrage - it's a great app but the lagging drives me crazy. This might be my second favourite app if it wasn't for the lagging. Love all the different canvas textures. If you don't mind the lag, you can do wonderful work on this app. I like the watercolour on this app, though. It's an app that you need to take some time to learn.

Procreate - love the brushes and the ease you can create fabulous brushes. Importing them to Sketchclub is a breeze. Import can be done with tranparency if you turn off the main colour on the background layer. Easy to import to iTunes and photoshop for more indepth editing and printing. The transform is not as smooth as Sketchclub.

Sketchbook Pro - when I first got it, it found it hard to learn. I didn't find it user friendly for me. This was my first drawing/painting app and you really need to know how to adjust your brushes. Over the year, the various upgrades made it much more user friendly...or maybe I'm starting to understand how to make adjustments better. I don't know...it is a nice app and I use it occasionally but for now, I'm so much more comfortable with the other apps that I rarely use this one.

I have close to 10 drawing/painting apps. The others are much smaller apps and do a fraction of what these ones do.   I'll play around with them once in a while.

No matter which app you use, the important thing is to get to know it and what it can do. From what I see on the Internet with the work other people put out, they're all pretty good.  It's like knitting needles...it doesn't really matter if you use wood or bamboo or metal or plastic, as long as you're comfortable with the tool you're using, it's all good.

Edited to add - moments after I posted this, Procreate came out with a kick-ass update. Honestly, they're all great apps...Sketchclub is still my go-to app but love all the others too.

Just a doodle

June 27/13 journal page

Done on my iPad using Sketchclub and imported to Artrage for the texture. Coffee cup brush was created with Procreate.

Perpetual Night

Perpetual night

 The painting was inspired by a wonderful Canadian artist, Ted Harrison - I love his use of bright bold colours.

I wanted to play with the new smaint feature on the app. Smaint is smudge with paint. Colours were laid down for the sky first in bands of darkest purple to a sunset orange/yellow. Once that was done, the paint option of smaint was set to off and smudged to blend the sky. White stars were done using small tiny dots. The water was the hardest but I was happy with the results. I wanted it to have some waves for movement. Once that was done, all the layers were compressed and a copy was made. The top copy was put through a noise filter to give it a glow effect.

This was done on my iPad, using Sketchclub app.

Remember to breathe

Remember to breathe

This is something I tell people at work when projects are overdue and everything has to happen at the same time. Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed that you just want to crawl under your desk and hide. It's something that I need reminding of once in a while - breathe.

I'm on vacation now - two weeks. It's not going to be a relaxing vacation. We're finally getting our floors redone. The carpets are finally going. I'm excited but it's a lot of work. We're not doing the actual floor work - a company is doing that. We're painting and moving furniture. Daunting task in the best of times. Last week, I sprained both ankles - stupid thing to do. It's been very interesting trying to stay off my feet and washing walls painting at the same time.

This was done during my "rest" periods on my iPad.

Remember to breathe - everything will get done and it will be okay.

Kindness of strangers

June 6/13 Journal page

Crazy busy at work, shit happened repeatedly all day. Bright spot was going out for sushi at lunch. Left work late, got off the bus and promptly fell, and skinned my knee. The same knee I skinned badly less than a month ago.  The same knee with the ugly scar that was starting to fade. Oh well, it will fade in another 20 years.

But, you know what? It was not a bad day really. I've been looking for binding coils and someone gave me a name and phone number of a print shop. They didn't have what I needed but gave me the number of the company they dealt with. So very helpful. The second company didn't have what I needed but offered to bind my scrapbooks for free when I told him I only needed to bind a couple every so often. Wow! He said they bind so many that slipping in a couple for me is not a big deal. Kindness of strangers made my day.

Journal page June 4/13

June 4 journal page

Salted toffee biscotti with drizzled chocolate

Chocolate drizzled toffee biscotti 

Costco had the Noni ones and they are so very yummy. Of course, once you're hooked, they went and discontinued them. 

I found the recipe here at A Few Shortcuts. 

Sometimes you gotta improvise. The plan was to make chocolate dipped salted Caramel biscotti.  But I couldn't find any of the caramel bits without having to peel wrappers and chop into itty bitty pieces. I found Skor toffee bits. Close enough. Same recipe, sub in toffee bits. It's all good.

Sprinkled less salt on top - request from my salt-conscious hubby, used a nice, fancy smancy chocolate and drizzled, not dipped.

The thing with homemade biscotti is that it never lasts as long as you hoped. Good thing they're pretty easy to make.

EDiM - 30 Closet

Hall closet

We're in the process of clearing out a lot of stuff in our house.  In a couple of weeks, our carpets are being ripped up and replaced with wood floors. As much as I'm looking forward to that, it has been quite a task going through everything.  When I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING!  It's really amazing the amount of stuff you can accumulate in 18 years.

I've really enjoyed the challenge of doing a sketch everyday. I started late with Every Day in May so I'm going to continue in June until I've completed the set.

Sketched on my iPad with Sketchclub.

EDiM 28 - Pitcher

Lemonade

I thought this would be an easy sketch but it was harder than I expected. Drawing glass is not easy. And I suck at drawing ice cubes. I guess I'll have my lemonade warm.

Drawn on my iPad with Sketchclub.

EDiM 27 - Sticky

Sticky molasses

This was in my cupboard. I really don't know how long it's been there but I don't think molasses goes bad.  I love the smell and taste of molasses but it's so sticky that it's a pain to clean.

EDiM #25 - Tote Bag

Duluth tote bag

Sketched on my iPad using Sketchclub. I'm going to be sad when May is over and there's no more EDiM.

EDiM 23 Summer Joy

Fresh peaches

Fresh peaches with mango in a smoothie. Yummy!

EDiM - 20 Favourite Drink

Long Americano

I'm sure there will be more than one or two sketches today with coffee being the favourite drink. Long Americano. Best drink ever. Yes, my coffee cup has a knitted sweater. With ribbing.  Every well dressed coffee cup needs a sweater.

Starbucks has this thing where you buy one of their reusable plastic cups for $1.00 and every time you use it, they take $.10 off. Considering I got this cup in January, I think I'm ahead.

Sketched on iPad in Sketchclub, tabletop done in Artrage.

A Quilt

A Quilt

Sketched and completely done on my iPad using Sketchclub app. The idea was to re-create the effects of a quilt in progress. Most of the time was trying to duplicate the look of frayed fabric. The fabric texture was a template on Sketchclub, put on as an overlay.

The Sketchclub App was just recently updated.  I think this is the best update so far. LOVE this app!

Play Date Cafe Challenge

Dance!

I recently came across The Play Date Cafe. Each week a challenge is posted and you create something using the criteria set out. This week's challenge are the colours maroon, poppy, and soft jade.

I really had a lot of fun with this challenge. This was all done on my iPad, using the Sketchclub app for the colouring and textures. The idea for this was the phrase "Dance as if no one is watching". This was running through my head all day long today.

EDiM #15 - Draw your favourite pencil.

Favourite pencil

This is just plastic mechanical pencil but I like it that it's thick and small. I'm really enjoying these EDiM drawings. They're simple quick sketches - anything that gets me drawing and doing something is a good thing.

EDiM #14 - A Figurine

Santa

EDiM #14 - a figurine. This is a sketch of a wooden Santa I carved many years ago. I was intrigued by a wood carving show on PBS and wanted to try carving. I sent away for the video - Wood carving with Rick Butz, and taught myself how to carve. Although I made a few things, this Santa was always my favourite.

Sketch done in Artrage app on my iPad.

A Pillow

EDiM #13

Every Day in May. Draw a pillow. This was done on my iPad, using the Sketchclub app.  I like the idea of doing simple sketches - nothing compicted.

Sunflower

Sunflower

Not really following the May questions today. I wanted to work on this sunflower that I've had sitting in my saved files in Sketchclub for a while now. The photo reference used was a picture I took of a giant sunflower in our yard last summer.  To be honest, the photo is so much better. I know what's wrong with the sketch but don't have the expertise to fix it. The petals are flat and have no depth. I think this will come with more practice. Lol! Never let the lack of talent stop me before. 😄

Lost Time

Lost Time

 I can't even keep up with a simple couple of lines for the 5 year journal. I decided to use the daily questions as a prompt to do a digital art journal page. The deal I made with myself is that if I skipped a day or two, I'm not going to sweat it. Just doing something will be enough. This one was for May 10/13 - Today I lost __. I felt I lost time by not doing what I felt like doing, which was to work on my sketches and not worry about what people may think. It makes me happy when I'm working on something - anything. An hour on the train is my time and I will not worry about people looking at me funny.