Draw then share with the world: The iPad is a new landscape for artists

// March 16th, 2010 // b-street, b-wired // Lawrence

The iPad brings portable potential to the artist’s toolbox. Will it plunder the ways we communicate or change how we create and share art online and off? Twitter has proved the efficiency of miniature messaging. Maybe the iPad could jolt a new host of image based chatter.
A sketchbook for a few, I doubt it. They’re being
pre-ordered in America at 25,000 an hour!

We’ve seen a whole host of creative applications come out for the iPhone. Whether you’re looking for exhibitions, wanting to sketch the local plaza or create another sequel to the Blair Witch: it’s all possible. The major limitation for drawing has been the screen size but the iPad solves that.
.

I read an article claiming the iPad is designed as a content consuming device rather than a content producer. The Chinese girl, PixieTea who has been creating catchy (albeit shit) music with iPhone apps can prove this wrong. There’s also of course the weekly iPhone sketch for the New Yorker from Jorge Colombo and Flikr groups just for iPhone art. The iPad is just a big iPhone, right? So it will take both content consumption and production further than its half-pint brother.


Brushes is a hugely popular ‘painting’ app that allows you to playback a video showing the stroke by stroke journey to your final picture. This alone opens up a whole new art-form, allowing the artist to take viewers along a visual process. Of course this has been done before with video cameras and real paint but now it’s more accessible through one platform. You can draw, save and then immediately distribute along the digital highways. With the iPad Brushes app you’ll be able to work on canvases up to 6.5m x 4.8m. That aint bad if you’re a budding Banksy, Ofili or Rothko.

Using an artist’s network like b-uncut you can get feedback from other artists in seconds. You can send work back and forth with collaborators across the globe or create an exhibition where new work is uploaded live. Why not set up wifi hotspots that incorporate projectors. You can turn up, tag a wall and leave it for someone else to add to: creating a continuous art exhibit or digital platform for visual expression.

The potential is now in the hands of artists and software developers and both can crank up the creative flow. Maybe soon I’ll see you at a life drawing class rocking your Pad instead of charcoal or maybe you’ll be creating live visuals in a DJ set. There’s a great future for digital art and this device will take it further.

.

  • I received an invitation to become a fan of iPad on Facebook--with the promise that the first 2000 to become fans will receive a free iPad
blog comments powered by Disqus