Abstract Calm
I started out in “ArtRage” and began painting a gray undercoat layer in a slate gray/green using the widest roller brush.
I continued with using a combination of the roller brush, oil brush, and even watercolor brush to create a pattern in gold, orange/red, and black on the second layer.
In the third layer I added an orange circle using the roller brush.
I added some more orange and blue/gray to unify the composition and saved it to my camera roll.
In “Brushes” I used different layers to create new effects. To begin with, I duplicated the main image four times, pinched it down, and used the + icon, located in the Layers palette, to move it around. That way I could use my own painting to create a collage composition. I placed the second layer with the now four images over the original and then opened a new layer. In that layer, I painted the black lines that suggest a tent frame.
Final image with shading: I used the airbrush, painting with a soft, semitransparent brush to successfully imply shadows and dimension.
I wanted to experiment with creating a simple painting in the app “ArtRage” and use other apps to unify it and give it a sense of drama. In “ArtRage”, I painted a pattern that consisted of three semi-curved brush strokes or swishes using the roller brush. Then I used the watercolor brush to make three swipes in gray/green and white to bind the yellow swashes together. I saved it to the camera roll.
I created a blank blue/gray gradient layer in “SketchBook Pro” and saved it to my camera roll.
In the third layer I added an orange circle using the roller brush.
Still in “Brushes”, I opened the image I saved from Step 1, added the gold gradient, again as an overlay, merged them and saved the image to my camera roll.
I opened the image in the app “Metal Me”, which creates metal textures. I played with some gold foil images but ended up with a more conservative silver etching.
Now back in “Brushes”, I open the painting from Step 4 and add another layer of the original gradient, resized, repositioned and applied to the composition in the Multiply mode. That punched up the color and created sense of a shaded plane. It also dramatically added contrast and density to the original paper texture we created back in Step 1.
I added another layer of gold in screen mode to give a warm glow to the entire painting and intensify the colors.
As a final step, I added the “Metal Me” version as a new layer and set in the screen mode at 50 percent opacity. This allowed me to lighten the mid-tones while leaving the darks alone.
This is the final painting. It suggested sunwashed sails and I called it Afloat.