Wallace Koopmans Artlog

I still have a few unpublished iPad paintings from our trip to Barkerville this summer. Sitting in the evenings with no distractions either reading or drawing was very relaxing. Yes the images are skewed towards nostalgia, but the entire experience of being in Barkerville BC is a form of it.

http://www.barkerville.ca/

With this sketch it’s apparent how I have used a photograph as the source.  While every stroke is unique and not directly derived from the photograph I had the source image as an underlying layer while painting.  This image could have been improved if I had painted some more dark greens at the base of the half barrel.  As it is the barrel is not grounded and appears to float on the image plane losing the three dimensional effect, appearing flat and giving away it’s photographic origins.

Not only can you use the iPad to sketch but you can use it to capture your source material too with it’s built in camera or through the camera connection kit.  All of this was done far away from any Internet connection or source of AC power.  I charged the iPad off of a 12V inverter whenever I needed to.

I was flipping through an old notebook from when I was in art school and found this polaroid of a “master copy” I had attempted (Please do not look up the original for both our sakes) What can I say you start somewhere and hopefully get better or switch to photography if you don’t. It is my intention to put down the cameras a little more often and do some more painting. Running across an image like this is a nice reminder, much nicer than being poked with the sharp end of a paintbrush.

The iPad is turning out to be a versatile tool for realizing the images I want to create.  It is difficult and sometimes impossible to simplify a scene to the degree that I want with photography but this allows me that possibility.  While not as immediate as a photograph I’m finding that I can create sketches faster than I could with traditional media.