Blodget’s Blog

I’ve been using Brushes to paint on my iPod Touch. I’m very impressed with the versatility of this application.

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Artpad.art.com is a free painting program. I think it’s Flash based.

Once you complete your painting, you can play it back. I did this and captured the playback using SnapZ Pro on my MacBook and saved the movie as a H.264 mov file.

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Crayola has a great online drawing tool. You can choose between a variety of different markers, pencils, and, of course, crayons. When you are done, you can print your creations. Lot’s of fun.

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I finally completed my first painting using the Holbein Water Soluble Oil Paints. They mix and look just like traditional oils, but you thin them with water. Clean up is a snap using soap and water. Also, dry time is greatly reduced. Thin washes dry over night and thickly applied paint dries in a few days. I painted it on a 9 x 12 inch canvas board.

Deepwood Flowers Painting

Originally uploaded by jimblodget.



I used this digital photo as a reference.


I also did a digital painting of the same subject using Painter.

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How to Convert a Camera Tripod into a Painting Easel.

Necessity, who is the mother of invention.
Plato, The Republic
Greek author & philosopher in Athens (427 BC – 347 BC)

I got a set of Holbein water soluble oil paints for Christmas and after looking around the house for a bit, I realized that I didn’t have good tilt-able easel. I did have several good camera tripods. What I really needed was a device that held a canvas and screwed on a tripod. So, I searched through art supply catalogs and the Internet, but I couldn’t find anything for sale. There are paint boxes that screw on a tripod and hold a canvas, but I didn’t need a paint box. I already had a good one.

After several weeks of thinking about it and going through at least 3 different designs, I decided to build one last weekend. I had everything I needed – wood, screws, power tools and an idea. I picked the easiest one to build. It uses two 1/2 inch dowels as rails and has 3 cross pieces that slide up and down. The center one screws onto the tripod and the outer two adjust for different sized canvases.

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The folks at WetPaint.com have just introduced an new free online paint program. You can use a variety of tools to create an image and you can invite others to join you to collaborate. Once the work is completed you can save it and share it in the Gallery. You can also download the image file to your own computer. It’s not as robust a program as Gliffy or Imaginationcubed, but it’s lots of fun.

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Want to create modern art like Picasso? Try out Mr. Picasso Head. It’s a free Flash based web application. Just drag and drop the ready made pieces, color and resize them and position them on the canvas. Then sign it and you’re done.

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I did this sketch on my Zodiac PDA while on location in the Oregon Gardens. I used a Polaroid digital camera to take the photo. Then I popped the SD card out of the camera and into the PDA. I used a program called Sketch to draw over the top of the photo and resize it. I then used my mail program to upload the file to Flickr via a wireless network. I’m now using the ‘Blog-This’ feature of Flickr to post this to my blog. In the future I could upload a sketch like this directly to the blog by using Flickr’s email to blog feature.

Sketch from Photo

Originally uploaded by jimblodget.

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Magnolia

Originally uploaded by jimblodget.

I’m hoping that this works. I’m trying to post to my WordPress blog from within Flickr. If this works, we’ll eat like kings.

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