Julian Wigley
Collage and Paint Mash-Up Master
Night Flyer Tinkering
BY JULIAN WIGLEY
Architect, Artist
Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
This artist’s background with traditional and digital media comes full circle with the iPhone and iPad firmly fitted in his toolbox. This tutorial will take us on his journey through multiple apps and stunning multiple final results.
Making Night Flyer Tinkering, with Some Side Diversions
Step 1
I make a quick series of sketches chasing an idea until it takes shape and has some meaning to me. The app ‘LiveSketch’ was used for the two base drawings, then merged in the app ‘DXP’ using the Multiply setting. This is the start of Propeller Head, Icarus and the Night Flyer series.
Step 1A
Opportunities arise: the first side drawing happens: Propeller Head. ‘ToonPAINT’ added texture and the drawing was mashed with colour photos using ‘DXP’.
Base Drawing 2. ‘LiveSketch’.
Propeller Head.
Base Drawing, ‘LiveSketch’.
Mashed with this lion’s head (a discarded dry gully).
Step 2
I worked on the original black-and-white sketch further by mashing it with other drawings using ‘DXP’ and importing it into ‘Brushes’ for the iPad, which allows for unsurpassed control over layered painting. This is looking for an image—the chase. There is no thought of the flyer, just a man’s profile. This head was developed into the stand-alone drawing Icarus.
Icarus
The above two images were combined in ‘DXP’ using the Soft Light setting.
Reworked with ‘Brushes’.
The reworking is mashed further using ‘DXP’ and background photos, until it’s time to stop. That is, I have an image that has meaning to me: Icarus.
Step 3
Icarus is combined with the first ‘LiveSketch’ drawing using ‘DXP’. I added some details using ‘Brushes’ to delineate the head and the propeller after the mash. Icarus turns back into the pilot. There is now colour and tone.
Step 4
The pilot’s torso is derived from the image below and composited in ‘Brushes’. The images of gears are sized, positioned and layered into the headgear. The ‘Brushes’ app for the iPad allows positioning and scale commands when importing a drawing. I put each drawing on a separate layer for additional control with opacity settings and brushwork.
Gears for headgear, above, at a low opacity.
The torso and left arm from my drawing Pajama Man are selected and manipulated in ‘Brushes’ to make the pilot.
Step 5
Raid your library for elements to combine into a new image.
A tablecloth from Tuscany was used as the cockpit. I used ‘Brushes for iPad’ to manipulate elements by putting them on separate layers, shifting their position and painting them together.
Step 5A
Another side drawing happens—the Night Flyer series. The aeroplane cockpit is a photo mash, using ‘DXP’, of a tablecloth taken in Tuscany, a jumble of computer cables taken in Darwin and a photo of clouds in my photo library. The pilot is composited into the piece using ‘Brushes for iPad’, resulting in the Night Flyer series.
Night Flyer
The Digital Collage— Finalising of Night Flyer Tinkering
Step 6
The pilot was scaled up and mashed with another abstract drawing (letter A) to provide a background. The final image takes shape.
Step 7
The overall drawing is shaped using paint as an eraser, adding details with brushes and combining a mash-up from my library—a logo and a steering wheel from an old Humber Snipe. Each is placed on its own layer and painted into the final composite.
Step 8
Final touches. The background is reworked to make it less ambiguous. Some ideas are sketched out directly on the image, in search of an elegant end: finally, deciding on pasting in the Night Flyer head and torso, on top of its own scaled-up image, then adding the hand holding the tools. The A was turned into a ladder. The medium allows you to work quickly when chasing down an idea.
