4 Going Digital

In the Final Part of Her Series, Kate Osborne Explores How Combining Virtual and Real-world Painting Processes Can Inspire New Creative Directions in Your Art

- Kate Osborne

Anyone who saw the David Hockney retrospective at the Royal Academy of Arts last year will be acquainted with the delightful results you can achieve creating art digitally on the iPhone and iPad. Computer art has been around for years but, with the advent of the tablet and the smartphone, the studio has become increasingly portable. Rapid improvements in technology has meant software is increasingly user-friendly. Your virtual paint, paper and brushes/tools now take up only the space on your tablet screen, and you can paint full colour – with no mess and clearing up – while sitting in a cafe.

Following in Hockney’s (very big) footsteps, I started with the Brushes app. One of the great things about new technology is the absence of a long tradition with ingrained views about right and wrong process. I began by spending evenings in an armchair just playing. Starting simply, I tried out different brushes on one layer, moving on to colour and, finally, adding more layers. The possibilities are endless and can be overwhelming, which is why a simple app, such as Brushes, is a good place to start. But even in a basic app there is a lot to get to grips with, and repetition is key to success.

Apps come with a huge range of default brushes, which can be modified to create texture from source photos. Compared to Brushes, which is an honestly digital platform, apps such as Procreate and ArtRage make a good job of faking media: oil and acrylic paint, charcoal, gel pens and pastels to name a few, as well as, in Procreate’s case, digital and natural textures, such as clouds, smoke, half-tone and more.