Marcella Donagemma

Mobile Art Renaissance

Tuscany

BY MARCELLA DONAGEMMA

Artist, Correspondent

Rome, Italy

Painting on mobile devices takes on a decidedly 4th century feeling in the hands of this artist, who demonstrates her techniques with a few variations. What is unique here is that when the painting process ends, a new sensibility of image processing shapes the final artwork.

We start in the app “Brushes” with brush #1 to block in the horizon line, earth, and sky.

Use brush #5 to create a gradient of color in the sky painting with a range of tones between the yellow and red. Now we have our sunset.

To get some texture and detail in the foreground, use brushes #3 and #4 to add a few new tones of green. Our forest is starting to form.

Rough in the shape of the tower using brush #2 with a dark and light brown. The light brown helps to define the direction of the light source.

We use brush #4 to add some grain and texture to the tower using a similar brown tone.

Go back to brush #2 to glaze with a more golden color and roughly block in the windows. We have established the sunset in the sky, now we need to reflect that light in the tower.

To create atmosphere, use brush #3 to soften the windows and create a more dream-like feel to the tower.

The final stage of painting this piece is using brushes 3–5 to create shadows and dimension to the foliage, the tower, and the tower windows. This is so important to show not just the sunset, but how the late light falls on the scene. Save this final image to the camera roll.

We have the form, color, and composition desired, but seem to be missing the spirit of old that I’m searching for … We could leave it here, but I decide to take this magical place on a search for a soul.

Open the final painted image from the previous page in the app “Lo-Mob”, and apply three different settings to the original, creating three different versions which are saved separately to the camera roll. The settings: “6 x 9 Instant Emulsion”, “35mm Medium Format 2” and my favorite at right, “Saturated Vintage”, which really expresses the feeling of an old, found painting. Perfect!