Getting started with Digital Art

 Having fun with Digital Art 

I have been experimenting with my photos and a couple of iPhone apps to create some fun digital art. To get started I simply downloaded the apps, took some photos and started to play, but I thought I would provide an introduction to what I have created and how it was done in case it inspires you to have a go too.

I have an iPhone and downloaded these apps from the apple store, I imagine there are similar (if not the same) apps available for other mobile phones too. Both these apps are free to download.

My two favourite apps for creating artworks are Snapseed and PaintCan. Snapseed is a pretty comprehensive photo editing app. Its main use in my digital art is in combining photos, layering one on top of another, with different blend modes. This is something that can be done much more professionally in Adobe Photoshop but is quick and easy in Snapseed. 

The second favourite app is PaintCan from Adobe, which transforms a photo into an art interpretation using different sized paintbrushes. In some cases I simply layer the original photo with the PaintCan version and get some subtle effects, other times I have used a background image (different to the original) and created a PaintCan version and then layered this with my original photo to add textures / colours and shades.

I'll start by giving an example. I was given a lovely bouquet of flowers for my birthday and took a photo of them on my iPhone.

Birthday flowers

I opened this photo in PaintCan and used the finer brushes to give a painted version of this photo which is shown below:

PaintCan version

I had also taken a photo of a pink striped blouse and started to play with this image in PaintCan. The original image is this:

Striped blouse

After  playing with the different brushes I ended up with this:

PaintCan version of the blouse

I felt that the flowers could do with a warmer shading and some texture so I combined the two images together in Snapseed using the double exposure tool and ended up with this:

Birthday Flowers artwork

I got this printed and it now hangs in my hallway and will remind me of the birthday flowers for many more birthdays to come!

Another fun image started out as a close up detail photo of a colourful fishing boat in Gozo.

Colourful boat detail

I then edited it in Snapseed, first adding a double exposure with a photo of the island of Comino,

The island of Comino

Then I took two phone snaps of a limestone wall that had a rough texture:

Old wall texture

Old wall texture

I then did double exposures in Snapseed of both of these to the combined image, finally getting this:

Gozo Thoughts artwork

I was happy with this final image and called it Gozo Thoughts as it reminds me of the colours, light and feel of a super holiday on the island of Gozo.

My final example is combining PaintCan versions of two photos of a beautiful sunset

Sunset photo

to get

Sunset artwork

which has much more warmth and emotion, I feel.

I hope I have given you a flavour of the great effects you can get very simply with Snapseed and PaintCan. Why not give them a go and have fun! Feel free to post your own works of art below in the comments, I'd love to see them.