As Rob posted previously on BBG, famed painter David Hockney, 72, has become fascinated with the iPhone application Brushes. He's created nearly a thousand images and emails them out to his pals. In the current issue of the New York Review of Books, Lawrence Weshler talks to Hockney about his foray into his pet new media. From the New York Review of Books:
Hockney, who has carried small notebooks in his pockets since his student days, along with pencils, crayons, pastel sticks, ink pens, and watercolor bottles--and smudged clean-up rags--is used to working small, but he delights in the simplicity of this new medium:"David Hockney's iPhone Passion"
It's always there in my pocket, there's no thrashing about, scrambling for the right color. One can set to work immediately, there's this wonderful impromptu quality, this freshness, to the activity; and when it's over, best of all, there's no mess, no clean-up. You just turn off the machine. Or, even better, you hit Send, and your little cohort of friends around the world gets to experience a similar immediacy. There's something, finally, very intimate about the whole process.
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I was doing sketches on my Palm III for a while. That was monochrome with some textured brushes, of course, and limited resolution, but still I've got a strong a "nothing new here, move along" reaction.
(Alas, my current palm is of the generation which had serious touchscreen calibration issues. Haven't yet bitten the bullet to replace it. Was interested in their new generation, but the decision to synch only via network turns me off.)
I remember seeing a docu about David Hockney using an early "electronic paintbox". I don't know the details of the system, but he was squinting at a screen, using a pen and tablet, and commenting that the colours didn't mix on the screen, which he saw as an advantage.
The paintbox was an old Quantel system and I think the programme was called Painting with light.
So, what do the usual Apple Haterz Crew think of this?
*crickets chirp*
I want to be on Hockney's friends list....
Anonymous was right. The video was entitled "David Hockney: Painting with Light" and it was created in 1986. To see a still of one of his paintings from that session, created on a Quantel Paintbox, check out Cynthia Goodman's great book "Digital Visions."