ARTIST
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Tree shadows, Brookdale Park
Although my downstairs studio is jammed with paints, inks, pencils, pastels and basically enough materials to open my own art supply store, the tool that has stolen my heart of late has been the iPad. I actually started with a tablet called the Remarkable2, which is very good for drawing but limited to black, white and gray.
The iPad, particularly the program Procreate, opened endless possibilities for color and a wide variety of brushes. Lately, ArtSet4, with its luscious textures, has joined my toolkit. Under the tutelage of Mark Daniel Nelson at the Winslow Art Center, I've learned not only what's under the hood of Procreate, but many different styles of digital painting, which you can see in my iPad gallery.
Of course the work of David Hockney continues to be an inspiration, and I think Matisse and many other artists would have embraced the iPad had it been available in their time.
One advantage of digital work is its portability, which has allowed me to sell images to customers in Rome, who have happily downloaded my painting of the Sisto Bridge and printed and framed it locally. I have also started creating my work in bigger sizes, which will allow it to be printed bigger too.
I know to some using an iPad to create art seems like a cheat or a lesser-than medium. But as I looked through my gallery of iPad paintings in order to create this new gallery, I felt certain that they are wrong. Art continues to evolve from the cave paintings of Lascaux to the mirror-polished stainless steel balloon dogs of Jeff Koons, and works created on the iPad have their place too.