Section 1
The Painters

The Painters are at the core of this movement, this worldwide group of traditional artists who all simultaneously discovered a new passion for painting on their iPhones. This group knows no geographical boundaries; they are tied together by the web. The established artists were joined by others learning these new tools, so one’s stature in the art world mattered less here. All that matters is the art.

The talented artists Xoan Baltar and La Legra Negra from Spain first showed the way on Flickr, and Patricio Villarroel in Paris has shown us thousands of ways since. Famed artist David Hockney in the UK and Jorge Colombo in the US brought a huge amount of international media attention to the concept of art made on an iPhone.

When the iPad was introduced, iPhone artists went crazy. With a surface eight times larger and apps optimized for this powerful device, this was a whole new ball game. The app “Brushes” provided the tools painters needed from the very beginning and still does, but “SketchBook Pro” has made great strides in the past few years, with “ArtRage”, “ArtStudio”, “Layers”, “Inspire”, “Procreate”, “PaintBook”, and others in everyone’s toolbox. Some apps are favored over others by different artists, each choosing apps based on a personal comfort level, but all are extraordinary tools when placed in the right hands.

In this section you will learn how traditional artists from all over the world approach painting on mobile devices. You will learn their tools of choice, their methods, and their inspirations. If you are a traditional artist, you will come away with a greater understanding of the various ways you can translate your existing skill set to creating art on these devices.

Painters will paint with anything, as art history has proven over and over again. They also are among the first to adapt to new technology or new ways of thinking. They are visual philosophers who comment on the world around them or on the human condition. They embrace new technology, but with a deep respect for the old. The diversity of the art in this section is a testament to the deep chord struck into the core of humanity by these devices created by Apple. Freed from the constraints of the studio or the desktop, artists, with the help of app developers, are creating a new kind of visual communication. The work is spontaneous yet serious, accessible and down to earth. Then the artwork is uploaded and self-published simultaneously to the entire planet Earth.