LuLu's profile

I never thought I'd be gung ho about drawing on my phone. I stopped drawing daily when I left Flip Flop and moved to the city, that was three years ago. Working full time, and now having a family has taken its toll on my discretionary time. But now, I can draw anywhere I want, even while nursing-- a feat nearly impossible with a pen and paper. While I miss the physical act of putting pen to paper, I would much rather draw, with an audience, no less, than not. It is fun to dust off old skills and pick up new ones. The millions of colors available, and the many digital brush tools are a bit overwhelming. I find myself defaulting to the tools and techniques I was trained for. The tan Canson paper with Conté pastels in white and red medici.  The yellow Ticonderoga HB pencils on typing paper. A dirty finger rubbed on a pink pastel.  The physical world gave us so many delightful restraints that I took for granted. Now there are new restraints-- a paintbox that only has colors of light. If I want Burnt Sienna or Parma Violet, I have to adjust the sliders of red, green and blue to approximate them. I have to imagine what the colors would look like on the colored background. Looking at the lists of colors in my head, I hadn't realized before now how terrestrial they are, how rooted in culture and history and far away places. I think of Prussian Blue, or Sienna, of Parma. The digital paintbox exists no place and no where.  It has no history, and no baggage.  A white illusion entirely lacking lead oxide.  After seeing the paintings from the Paris Commune @ the De Young, and Gustav Dore's painting of the causualties of the Prussian siege, done, ironically in a Prussian blue grisaile. Did he do that on purpose? 

All the colors can be summoned and sent away at will. I remember spening $20 on a tube of oil paint, a particular shade of luminous sky blue that I couldn't mix. How the pigment was coursely ground to preserve the facets of the mineral. This is a sideways step for me. Drawing with my finger means I don't have an instrument to control, the instrument is now the screen.  The screen artefacts are funny. Every once in a while, a stray horizontal line appears. But I don't have to carry pencils rattling in a tin box. I also don't need a scanner. You, dear readers get to see it with a well-placed fingertap