in the tree
here comes the sun, do do do do
and i say
it's alright.
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Tree Outside My Window
via flickr.com
Done in the new Vellum app on my iPod Touch with my fingers and Pogo Stylus.
My Twitter pal @TimPeckham put me onto this new iPod/iPhone drawing app. I find it hard to explain why I find this so absolutely what I need, to think out loud in a visual way. But I'll try.
Vellum's Ink and Graphite strokes are responsive to stroke velocity but that is the only variable. This makes strokes predictable, but not impossibly rigid. I think the coding choices for Ink and Graphite have been good ones -- no, they don't look or feel exactly like pencil or ink. If you want something like that, buy Painter, and stick to your computer with a complex-response Wacom tablet. If you want an iPod approximation of natural media digital painting, try an app like Brushes or Layers. But I must say that Vellum is the most authentic and simple sketching app for iPhone/iPod Touch that I have found yet. Think pencil, pen, or scratchboard tools in Painter....
Personally, I don't think the app needs color. The limitation of quick, simple rendering is actually quite freeing. Several "saving" changes would help the app. If you close the app without saving, you lose your work. It would be nice if images were saved automatically upon close -- equally nice would be if the app re-opened to the most recent open image.
My other way-fave iPod/iPhone art app is Paintbook, and my favorite aspect of Paintbook is the fact that it is a vector app. It would be lovely if the developer of Vellum found a way to save or conveniently export drawings as PDFs. I often (like almost always) use my iPod Touch to sketch on site, or to sketch from memory, and I frequently use these sketches as references for later digital paintings in Painter on my larger computers at home. Vector capability has a lot of advantages when saving simple sketches for uses when images need to be re-sized for composition in a larger painting.
Finally, long ago and far away, my first love was linoleum block printing. Somehow, blocking out larger shapes and then scraping out the details lines up with my personal arrangement of neurons. Vellum does this deliciously, especially if you lay down shapes with Ink, and carve away with Scratch. This just happens to be the way my brain works -- blob on the approximate shapes, them scrape away the 'errors'. Since this is digital drawing (and the whole reason why I converted from natural media to digital), if you scrape away and regret it, you can blob an approximate shape back in place. This highlights a needed revision to Vellum -- there is currently no "undo". Undo and re-do would be nice.
Some people might like the ability to import photo images, but I don't care. Personally, I like the restriction of being without an on-screen photo reference.
Vellum is certainly going to take its place along side Paintbook as my go-to iPod Touch art app. LV
The Useless Tree
I look at my mandolin and I think about my role as a lifesaver. Drowning in a river? Quick, grab my mandolin and I'll pull you out. Maybe not. And the roar went up,' Its the storyteller, the city is saved!' These are unlikely scenarios, but do beg the question of the role of artists, musicians and writers to 'save the world.' I do lump us all together because there is a crossover in both our working mediums and identity. As a storyteller I identify as all three. And I'm sure you couldn't find three more useless groups if you looked the world over (lets assume jugglers, dancers, actors and poets are in the mix). We are not builders, engineers, manufacturers, agriculturalists, doctors, scientists, cleaners...in short, useful people. Plumbers are needed, painters are not, unless they paint buildings and bridges. Maths, English and Science are mandatory school subjects, whereas art, dance, drama and music are not. You may well hear 'we're all very proud of him, he's a surgeon/chemist/architect, but how often do you hear 'we're all very proud of him, he's a poet?
While I am in agreement with the sentiment of the US painter Robert Henri (1865 - 1929) who said that he was interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living, the reality is that being a storyteller is how I make my living. I know I am not going to invent a life saving medicine or help humanity in any great way. No-one is ever going to say 'We've got an emergency. Is there a storyteller in the house?' Some may consider artists indulgent and art a luxury, but I believe art serves a purpose. A play may act as a bridge between cultures, a poem may inspire hope, a song may revive a spirit, a painting document history, a sculpture unite a community and a story may offer a means of understanding the world. The intrinsic value of art is stated succinctly by Albert Camus (1913 -1960) in his declaration, 'There is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom of each person who has known and loved it.' 
In that light I'd like to share my tale, extrapolated from the story, The Useless Tree by the fourth century BCE Chinese Philosopher Chuang Tzu, now known as Zhuangzi.
There was once an old man who took his grandson to the top of a hill, where stood a solitary tree. Its trunk was was knotted and gnarled, its branches twisted and bent. The boy turned to his grandfather and asked why he had brought him to this tree.
The old man smiled and gestured to the barren land around them.
"Once the earth here was covered with tall trunked, straight limbed trees, but the woodcutters came and cut them all down for their timber."
"But why didn't they take this one?" asked the boy.
"Because it is of no use to them," answered the Grandfather.
And the two sat down in the shade of the useless tree and shared stories.
Photo: The Useless Tree by Roman W. Schatz
Oranging Ever-Green tree
Any information would be greatly appreciated!
51/365 - 11/17/09 [365 Days @ 50mm] - Dusk Lamp post
Dusk Lamp post
Strobist Info:Flash: None1/10 sec, ISO 320, Manual, 50mm, f 1.8
