I have a love/hate relationship with my
iPhone. On the one hand it’s like the limb I never knew I'd been missing, but when it breaks down…well, it’s only broken down once in the eight months or so I’ve had it, but having gone through three or four iPods on one warranty, I’m not optimistic. So last Thursday I was in Grand Central Station withdrawing money from the brand-new Chase ATMs (they’re supposed to be touch-sensitive but you have to stab at each choice at least ten times—designed to sense frustration levels rather than fingertip heat, they only work when you’re ready to smash the screen) and it dispensed $100 when I’d clearly pressed the $200 indicator (never, never will I withdraw money again without getting—and keeping—the receipt). I tried immediately to call the number on the wall, but my iPhone said “No Service.” I walked outside, and still “No Service.” I tried a pay phone on the street (they still have them) but the Chase rep couldn’t hear me. When, an hour later, I finally got through on my land line, I found out that Chase had—whew!—only deducted $100. But then I had to go to the Apple Store for two hours, go get my computer and bring it back for another two hours, after which I had a brand new iPhone with all my data intact...except the apps. Once you’ve purchased an app you can download it again for free, but any un-backed-up app data will be lost.
Lost! It was a crushing moment because then and only then did I realize that my true métier isn’t actual but virtual painting with the iPhone app called
Brushes, and the masterpieces I’d made with it were gone forever. I
love my Brushes “paintings”—really paintings over photos, just like
Gerhard Richter—but have had to reluctantly acknowledge that yet again, the thing I do best has no material application. I thought they’d make great
Iris prints, so emailed them off to a friend who has a gallery and does such things, but she was not impressed. That may change, however, and Brushes may yet become respectable, because it turns out that this week’s
New Yorker cover by Jorge Columbo was done on an iPhone with Brushes. You can see it
here, with a step-by-step video of how he drew it (makes it look easier, though, because it doesn’t include the “undos”)
Here are two of mine, which I was smart enough to save:
2 comments:
I prefer your iPhone 'paintings' to Columbo's, but since those of us in the graphics/computer world have been doing this for eons (in-camera and with brushes), my personal wow level is subdued.
Yes, Photoshop and its siblings have been around forever, but can you use Photoshop without any special instruction and while waiting for the bus? Actually, what I like best about Brushes is that it's "finger painting," which keeps it loose and overrides my innate tendency to refine.
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