Number Sixty-One: The Art Must Flow

Today's picture was drawn in an app called Flowpaper. It describes it as drawing 'with physics' and the best description I can give you is that it's kind of like drawing with webs of colour that... flow. It's neat and while it takes a few minutes to get the hang of how the thing moves and works you can learn to control it enough to create pictures that are recognizable objects.

This was an abstract doodle but I liked it because it ended up reminding me of a Madonna and Child painting. Click to see it at full size.

Number Sixty: A Different Kind Of Preservation

I've mentioned before that we like to go on weekend drives and I always take my iPhone along in case there's something new and exciting for me to capture. Andrew always has his camera as well so he can take pictures of old train stations and on this particular drive I took a few shots of an old station he was stalking. It was late in the day when the sun was already low so my shots didn't turn out well at all, plus I took them with the iPhone camera, forgetting that I'd changed the settings so they were also pretty grainy.

I played around with them, of course, and the drama filter in Snapseed brightened up the shot I chose. I also used Snapseed's crop function, then imported the edited picture into Corel's Paint It! Now where I ran it through the Oil filter, then saved another version that I briefly ran through the Pen and Ink filter. When I had saved those I combined them in BlendCam using Darkness Priority and got what you see here as my final result.

That all sounds fiddly but it's not so bad. I am very fond of this effect and love that I can take fairly crappy photos and make them more interesting. Click on the picture if you'd like to see it at full size.

Number Fifty-Nine: Birds Over Water

I first drew this picture in Harmonius, an app which is a particular favourite of mine. Since Harmonious saves pictures drawn in it at a very small size I usually post-process them in another app that saves them larger. In this case I used Corel's Paint It! Now; another favourite app of mine which you already know if you've been reading along with the project!

This time I did take advantage of the colour function in Harmonious although I kept it muted. Be sure to click to see the picture at full size.

Number Fifty-Eight: Yet Another Happy Accident

I know that this started out as a photo gone wrong when I was taking shots of some of my mom's plants. I don't quite remember which plants or which app I was using at the time but the original was quite blurry and indistinct. So it sat in my iPhone photo library waiting for a purpose until I decided to play with it in Corel's Paint It! Now. I used the Impressionist filter on it and made it into a wallpaper for my iPhone. I like using abstract stuff since my apps and folders make the wallpapers difficult to see anyhow so it's more about colour and mood than pictures and text.

Number Fifty-Seven: Some Kind of Nebula

Today's picture is pretty abstract. I started it in Fluid Monkey using the Wet Mud setting and took a screenshot of it. I imported the screenshot to Snapseed and randomly applied the Grunge filter until I got an effect I was satisfied with.

I've mentioned the calming properties of Fluid Monkey before and it's always that way. Even if you don't want to use it for artistic purposes it's pretty addictive!

Be sure to click the picture to see it at full size.

Number Fifty-Six: A Self Portrait

I created this one using a similar technique to yesterday's pumpkin top. I used a photo of myself that I didn't mind tooo much and used the Pen And Ink filter on it in Corel's Paint It! Now app. The first time I wasn't pleased at all. It overdid the lines and made me look kind of haggard so I restarted it and stopped it just as it became recognizable as me. Then I moved it over to BlendCam and blended it with a photo I'd taken accidentally one time out in the backyard, set at darkness priority.

I like it! Click to see it at full size.

Number Fifty-Five: A Warmer Time

Yesterday was our first real snowfall here in Kingston this year and sadly it had me already longing for warmer weather. So I looked back through some older shots and experimented with a few, intending to do something creative with something I took over the summer. Instead I settled on this pumpkin shot; one I actually used in the triptych I put together the day after Halloween.

First I opened it up in Corel's Paint It! Now and used the Impressionist filter on it, stopping it a little bit before it was complete. I saved that and opened it again, this time using the Pen And Ink filter and letting it complete. Then I combined both of the filtered pieces in BlendCam using Darkness Priority so the Pen and Ink lines would sit on top of the other piece.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out and have been experimenting with similar effects on other photos. Stay tuned for more! (Also make sure to click to see today's piece full sized.)

Number Fifty-Four: Water Lilies In Space

This is another in my small series (so far) of Happy Accidents. We were traveling from Toronto to Kingston in the rain (or it was the other way around; I don't remember exactly) and I accidentally took this picture of the car window at a gas station. It was not much of much on its own, looking pretty much like a blurry shot of florescent gas station lights through a rain-spattered car window, but then I used the Impressionist filter on it in Corel's Paint It! Now and was pleased to end up with my own Monet Through A Car Window.

Number Fifty-Three: A Horse is a Horse

But, you might cry, this project is called ART On My iPhone, no?

Sometimes my iPhone is also used as a toddler distraction system. I have a little folder of toddler-friendly apps but I also use my art apps to amuse and entertain Essie. Sometimes she wants to draw, sometimes she asks me to draw things for her.

Meritum Paint Pro is a good app for quick fun drawings since depending on what settings you have applied it takes on a life of its own when you paint with it. So when Essie uses it I usually have it set so that there are lots of tendrils and movement. Then she demands a pig or snowman or dinosaur and I quickly change the settings so that I can draw a recognizable form.

YES, this is a recognizable form. Essie immediately recognized it as a horse and likes it so much that every other day or so she asks to see the horse and isn't happy until I pull this up and show it to her. I laugh every time I see it, but to her it is art so who am I to argue?

Number Fifty-Two: Puffy Things!

My mom has a climbing plant in her backyard on one corner of the house that I kind of admired/wondered about for most of the summer. It had nice blue blooms in the spring and for the rest of the summer was covered in weird puffy things that grew fluffier and fluffier the older they got. I referred to it as the 'weird puffy thing' plant until finally asking my mother just a few moments ago what the thing is actually called. It's an Alpine Clematis! I've taken a few pictures of it and have stored them waiting for me to play around with them.

Today's art doesn't exactly showcase the plant as a whole but it was the product of some experimentation I've been doing with various programs. I know I took the shot with Gorillacam trying to capture the curly, withered nature of the leaves since the cold weather hit. It wasn't quite what I'd hoped so I used the Oil filter in Corel's Paint It! Now to see what happened. It was interesting but it lost the definition of the leaves. I decided to combine the original with the filtered shot in Blendcam and was very happy with the sketchy, airy quality the filtered shot gave the original while still keeping the leafy look I'd wanted in the first place.

Number Fifty-One: Refocused Dandelions

Essie and I have been venturing into the backyard on days when the weather permits so that she can putter around and get some fresh air. I take my iPhone with me of course even though I've exhausted most of the photo possibilities back there before the snow arrives. This day, however, I noticed a couple of hardy dandelions that had managed to go to seed and were waiting for a breeze to fulfill their destinies. I snapped a few shots of them with Gorillacam but couldn't get them to focus, ending up with the background in focus instead. Then I got distracted and never got to back to taking more pictures of them that day.

I was disappointed but fiddled around with them in Corel's Paint It! Now and found that the Impressionist filter disguised the focus issues perfectly. Plus it gave the dandelion the fuzzy, delicate feeling that had been lost.

Number Fifty: Copper and Green

My mom's house has a big, beautiful oak tree in the front yard. It was much smaller when she bought the place and over the years I've witnessed how its leaves are the last to sprout in the spring but also the last to fall off in autumn. I think the neighbours must hate it because after their maple tree has shed all its leaves and they've raked them up they then have another thick blanket of oak leaves to contend with.

Of course I took this shot with Gorillacam and used Snapseed to brighten it up a bit with the ambiance controls. I'm thinking of trying out some other camera apps just so I can review a few on AOMi but it might be hard to make the switch. I really do love Gorillacam!

Number Forty-Nine: Fly Away Home

Essie and I were playing in the driveway when I looked down and saw this little ladybug crawling on my coat. Essie really wanted to play with it but I rescued it from the kind of 'play' a two-year old inflicts on bugs (in the form of not being gentle enough; not in a mean sense) and put it on the top of the neighbour's chain-link fence. I thought it might fly away but instead it tucked its legs underneath it and sat like this. I guess the cold weather doesn't agree with ladybugs.

Apps used: Gorillacam and Snapseed which are always the combination I use when editing my photography. Snapseed has all the editing features I need to get the pictures looking the way I want before transferring them to my computer.

Number Forty-Eight: Endurance

I loved the way the sun was shining through the leaves on the day I took this shot. I think the effect was more striking in person than I was able to capture in the photo but I was still happy with the way this turned out. I was inspired by this leaf clinging so tenaciously to its branch, scarred, weather-worn, eaten away around the edges and freezing but still there, catching the sun.

I used Gorillacam and Snapseed yet again, tweaking the ambiance just a bit to highlight the sunlight. Click to see it at full size so you can appreciate the little details of the leaf!

Number Forty-Seven: Painted Fire

This picture started out as one of the photos I took of the gorgeous sunset that I posted a couple of days back. Most of them were blurry shots taken from a moving car and today's piece is what I had intended to use them for from the start. I knew that the vibrant golds and blues would look beautiful if I used a paint filter on them, and they did.

I used the Impressionist filter in Corel's Paint It! Now but made sure to stop it halfway through when the brushstrokes were still large. I wanted it to look like a painting of fire; not a sunset. I think it worked out pretty well!

Be sure to click on the picture to see it at full size.

Number Forty-Six: A Happy Accident

Sometimes when I'm taking photographs I carelessly shove my iPhone back into my pocket and end up taking crazy shots of the inside of my pocket or my fingers. Other times I accidentally trigger the camera when I'm just holding it in my hand. Either way I often end up with mysterious and blurry shots that mostly get deleted. Every now and again, though, they're kind of interesting and I see potential for something artistic so I play around with them in my apps. I've ended up with a lot of cool iPhone wallpapers as a result.

I have no idea what this was a picture of originally. I liked the colours though and ran it through the Impressionist filter in Corel's Paint It! Now. I really like the way the faux brush strokes in that app render. In order to see it at its best definitely click on it to view it at full size.

Number Forty-Five: A Beautiful Evening

On a beautiful weekend drive we were heading home into the most gorgeous sunset. I snapped a few iPhone camera pictures of it through the car windows, intending to use the photos only for the colours. I figured I'd use some paint filters on them, making focus unnecessary. This one turned out very surprisingly well, however! There are a few window smudges but all in all I was more than happy with it. I cropped it and adjusted the ambiance a bit in Snapseed.

The countryside in and around the Kingston area is gorgeous for admiring on weekend drives. We started them over the summer and have continued on into the fall. I think I've seen most all of the smaller highways and towns and villages there are to see around here!

Number Forty-Four: Scary But Pretty

Here is yesterday's spider, now with flash! This isn't the best quality picture I've ever taken but it was the best of the ones I managed to take of her. She very obligingly sat still and waited to see if I was going to get caught in her web or what. You can even see her web in this shot.

I used Gorillacam and Snapseed on this one, using Snapseed's Drama 1 filter to highlight how pretty she really is.

Number Forty-Three: Still Scary

I am very afraid of spiders. They've got all those legs and eyes and have the ability to get anywhere, then they swing around on super-strong ropes and get in your hair or clothes. Spiders!

I'm also fascinated by them. They're kind of beautiful and compelling and I love sculpting them. So when I saw this one on its web against the laundry room window one evening I ran to get my iPhone and try to capture it. Half of the pictures used no flash and I ended up with somewhat fuzzy silhouettes. They were still kind of striking looking so I ran one through Corel Paint It! Now's Oil filter and liked the result. Which you see here!

Click to see it at full size, of course.

Number Forty-Two: Lest We Forget

Apps used: Adobe Photoshop Express and WordFoto.

Number Forty-One: Tough But Beautiful

This rose has been blooming at the side of the house like the cold weather ain't no thang. I'd been photographing the thorns surrounding it and decided to take a few pictures of it since it deserves to be commemorated for its stubborn nature as well as its beauty.

I used Gorillacam to take the picture, of course, and the Drama filter in Snapseed to highlight the details. Click on it to see it at full size!

Number Forty: Freaky Tree

I sketched this tree using the Harmonius app. I wasn't going for any particular type of tree but liked the Seussian feel it had. Since Harmonius produces such tiny pictures I used the Oil filter in Corel's Paint It! Now to change it up and make it bigger. I was very pleased with the result.

You can actually use colour in Harmonius; I just often forget that and draw an entire picture before I remember. The effect that the procedural drawing creates is always so neat that it just doesn't enter my mind!

Click on the picture as usual to see it at full size.

Number Thirty-Nine: The Colours of Fall

Today's photograph was taken during a backyard search for something unique and interesting. A fall leaf isn't necessarily either of those things but as I've said before; this fall wasn't one of the more colourful ones. That's why I look very hard for bright spots of colour in the fallen leaves scattered around.

I took the picture with Gorillacam, of course, and hit it with a Drama filter in Snapseed because that's my favourite combination for photos I love from my iPhone. Make sure to look at this one at full size. The detail of the leaf is just amazing!

Number Thirty-Eight: Sandpainted Crane

I painted this crane using Saindpainting again. I only used one colour (except for the white highlight on the crane) but because Sandpainting creates the illusion of depth when you pour sand in one place over time you can create varying shades of the colour you're using. It takes a long time but seeing as how it's a sandpainting app it requires patience.

Be sure to click to see the picture at full size!

Number Thirty-Seven: A Temporary Separation

On a weekend drive through Seeley's Bay we stopped to look at Seeley's Bay United Church. Apparently the spire had developed a very bad lean a few years ago and so had to be lifted off to sit next to the church until it can be restored to its rightful place. Sadly they don't quite know when that will be as the repairs will be costly.

I was struck by the sight and had to take a few pictures. It has such a sad and whimsical feel to it. I used my usual combination of taking the picture with Gorillacam and using a Drama filter on it in Snapseed to give it more interest. It was a stunningly beautiful evening for a drive and there were a lot of pictures I didn't take that I wished I had, but I was very glad to have taken this one.

Number Thirty-Six: My Boys

This was taken with Gorillacam especially because taking pictures of snoozing cats almost always guarantees they'll wake up and give the photographer a dirty look. I wanted to have a few to choose from and this was definitely the best. After I selected the shot I wanted I imported it to Snapseed to use one of the Black And White filters on it. I think it was Black And White 5.

This is Mongkut and Shelley, for those who don't already know my kitties. Mongkut is a Lilac Point Siamese and Shelley is a brown tabby. They've grown up together since kittenhood and love each other like brothers, fighting and snuggling and playing all the time. They're usually pretty poorly behaved but I love them like crazy anyhow.

Number Thirty-Five: Thorny

You know, I do a lot more photography for this project than I'd initially thought I would. I was saying to a friend a little while back that having my iPhone with me at all times is starting to make me think more like a photographer. I try to frame everything in my mind, trying to see the photographic potential in it.

Sometimes it's more about the idea than a tableau or specific scene I've noticed. I've been trying to get a good shot of the thorns on some of my mom's rosebushes for a while now but they are very uncooperative subjects and the picture ends up focused on what's in the background rather than where I think I'm aiming the camera. I really wanted to capture them, though, with their pointy, fearsome attitude. This shot (taken with Gorillacam and spruced up a bit with Snapseed's Drama filter) is the closest I've gotten to what I've been trying to capture. I'm not sure when my mom will be cutting them back in preparation for next spring so I'll probably try for a few more interesting ones.

As always click on the picture to see it at full size.

Number Thirty-Four: Autumn Tree II

The fall colours weren't quite as spectacular this year as they have been in the past. There were bright spots of colour in places but overall things were more brown-tinged than gold and orange. Maybe that's why I've had the urge to draw lots of autumn trees this year.

I drew the first draft of this in Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas which is a seriously fun app to use. Even if I don't like the saved quality of the pictures creating them is always a good time. Since I always use post-processing on the pictures I create in this app I exported this one to Corel's Paint It! Now where I used the Oil and Illustration filters to see what happened. I liked both but felt that each of them could be more interesting, so decided to combine them in BlendCam using Darkness Priority.

I loved the result, so here it is! Click on the pic to see it at full size.

Number Thirty-Three: Crossed Wires

I took this picture with my iPhone on a day of somewhat crazy weather in Toronto. I was in the car outside of Pancer's waiting for Andrew to come out with our sandwiches and liked the criss-cross of the dark wires against the clouds. What you see is the original photo, exactly as I took it. I didn't crop it or apply any filters because I liked it just as it is.

Number Thirty-Two: A Happy Halloween

Halloween was fun this year! I had my iPhone ready to take pictures of Essie because to my surprise she decided at the last minute that she was willing to wear the costume we had ready for her. I'd thought it was a lost cause since she ripped it off of herself every time we tried to try it on her but wearing it over her jacket didn't seem to bother her too much. She even wore the hat (which made her scream every time previous.)

So, I fired up Gorillacam and snapped a bunch of pictures; of Essie, the pumpkins, and Essie and the pumpkins together. After all the excitement I edited a few in Snapseed and then put this together in Diptic.

Make sure to click the picture so you can see it at full size!