Tag: Art »

If you're in the Los Angeles area this weekend, be sure to check out the LA Mobile Arts Festival in Santa Monica. Be sure to say hi to the rolling blue bus for us.

The first years of the growing mobile arts movement come to a culmination with the inaugural LA Mobile Arts Festival (LA-MAF), an eight-day event that will showcase the best in iPhoneography and other forms of mobile digital art. Hosted in Santa Monica, Calif., LA-MAF is the first-of-its-kind for the mobile arts and the largest mobile art event to date, featuring over 225 artists from over 30 countries and 25 U.S. states, exhibiting well over 600 images, sculptures, films and installations.

Where: Santa Monica Art Studios
3026 Airport Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90405
(310) 397-7449
When: August 18-25, 2012
Gallery hours: August 18: 7-10pm, August 19-25: 12-6pm

Schedule Here

Steve Jobs was often quoted as saying “the best camera is the one you have with you.” Certainly with the last product launched under his eye, the iPhone 4S, that’s true. The advanced optics continue to hold up in test after test against even the most photo-centric smartphones out there. Coupled with the seemingly endless supply of quality camera replacement and photo editing apps iPhone photography has officially crossed the line, in the right hands, from casual snapping to art.There’s even a term used to denote the particular looks achieved with all models of iPhone: iPhoneography. Now comes an art show that turns its lens on the best of the best.

The LA Mobile Arts Festival, which takes place between August 18-25 in Santa Monica, California is hosting a week-long display of what they describe as: "art originated through the lens of an iPhone and celebrating what become [sic] known as iPhoneongraphy. Much more than citizen photography, iPhoneography is true and real art." If you live in Southern California or will be there later this month be sure to check it out

Disney has released a tool to help make pixel art and animation easy. Pixel’d lets users make artwork that shows its pixelation and is proud of it! Users have a default 150x150 canvas to work with, though this can be shrunk to 4x4 or enlarged up to 1024x768. Users can freehand draw, generate lines or shapes, and use color fill to help make their creations. Artists looking for more advanced editing can use 3 modifiable layers to help them in their process.

Canvas backgrounds can be added and interacted with, featuring artwork from various Disney properties. A selection comes with the app for free, and others are available through in-app purchases. It’s possible to create more than just single-frame artwork, as animations up to 20 frames long can be created. Single frame artwork can be exported as PNG or GIF with animations exportable as either animated GIFs or MP4 video files. These can then be exported to the Camera Roll or shared to social networks directly from the app. Finally, it’s possible to team up with a friend using the Buddy Draw feature to collaborate on artwork via wifi.

Recently released from Holly Brown, a Hong Kong-based coffee and gelato company, HB Latteland lets users take a stab at latte art on their iPhones.

I have to admit that before I saw this app, I had no idea that latte art existed. I took a look at the app and wondered who was creatively strange enough to think of an app where players make art out of coffee. A few YouTube videos later and I’m entranced by how cool some people (latte artists?) can make a latte look.

HB Latteland starts a player in “Latte Art School” where the choose a mentor from the Holly Brown team of baristas to lead them through school. When users “graduate” from the art school, they’re faced with challengers from around the world in the Challenge stage. Featured in the challenge modes are World Latte Art Champion Scottie Callaghan and Taiwan Champion Van Lin. In addition, there’s an etching mode where players can basically draw and etch on a cup of latte.

Holly Brown is a Hong Kong-based coffee and gelato company with coffee from Italian master roaster Domenic Spadaccini and made-to-order gelato for customers.

In a strange mash-up between painting and music, developer LeafNotes has released Soundbrush. Soundbrush works by drawing lines or shapes. Those lines and shapes turn into corresponding sounds. Each paint color stands for a different instrument (for example, blue is a piano).

The artist-musicians using this app get to hear the notes as they’re drawn. Users can even go back and delete previously drawn notes by double tapping; so more refined and thought-out pieces are definitely possible with Soundbrush.

Soundbrush uses both major and minor and major and minor pentatonic scales as well as the blues scale. A musical grid can be displayed to help pay more attention to exactly which notes are being drawn on the canvas.

Users with no experience with either drawing or music can take a stab at the app and still have plenty of fun. While there are no templates for new users to play with, there is the video below posted by LeafNotes showing the creation of a song/painting and how it sounds.

PipeDream Labs, an app development company based out of India, has released its first interactive children’s book, The Perfect Shape. The book is a 30-page story with unique art, music, and interactivity.

The app mixes some traditional story-telling with animations (both subtle and flamboyant) to make for an interesting experience for children. The book describes the tale of Curiosity, the youngest son of the creator, and his goal to “redesign the world to make it a better place and rid it of all wrongs.” Curiosity is accompanied by his pet Bunny. The Perfect Shape follows Curiosity and his pet as they adventure to create the perfect world.

The Perfect Shape was released on March 23th and is available for $2.99. The Perfect Shape is an iPad-only app.

PipeDream Labs also creates digital comics, games, and designs toys. Check them out here.

It's a little cliched to say but Starry Night Interactive Animation is utterly beautiful to look at and interact with.

Taking one of Vincent Van Gogh's most famous pieces of art, Starry Night, iPad users can watch the creation move as well as interact with it themselves.

It's positively delightful, both peaceful and wondrous with a similarly attractive musical score. Supporting multi touch, users can interact with Starry Night with up to ten fingers at once, making it an ideal app to use with others.

Using a finger to ripple through the artwork is a mesmerising experience, even despite the occassional moments of blurriness.

While I've yet to get a chance to see the real Starry Night, this app is a great substitution in the meantime. It'd be great to see other works of art implemented in a similar way in the future. It makes art accessible for the masses and brings it to life for children.

Check out Starry Night Interactive Animation now, priced at $1.99.

The last week of March was a busy one across the 148Apps network, beginning with 148Apps.com, where Lisa Caplan reported on the massive windfall Apple has already garnered from the release of iPhoto for iOS. She writes, "According to AllThingsD, iPhoto for iOS passed the one million download mark last week. That’s quite an impressive figure, particularly when it implies Apple has earned more than five million dollars from the app in less than a two week period.

Read the full story at 148Apps.com.

GiggleApps.com kept up the pace with a review of Explore Vincent. Writer Amy Solomon says, "Explore Vincent is a wonderful app for iPad exploring the life and times of Vincent van Gogh, the brilliant yet troubled artist from childhood through adulthood, ending with his death in 1890.
This app is a true multimedia delight as many mediums are explored within this app for iPad."

Read Solomon's review at GiggleApps.com.

Finally, 148Apps.biz writer Kevin Stout reported on Apple's new policy regarding apps that access UDIDs. "As Apple warned the development community in August, it has started rejecting apps submitted to the App Store that access a user’s UDID. This seems to be a response to Congress’ interest in privacy concerns in mobile devices.

Kim-Mai Cutler from TechCrunch reports that while the UDID is used for many mobile ad networks for targeted ads, UDIDs pose real privacy issues."

Read more at 148Apps.biz.

*Whew!* And that's just a sample of the amazing amount of content making its way across all of the 148Apps sites this week. Stay on top of the latest in reviews, news and contests by following us on Twitter and liking us on Facebook. And don't forget to check back here next week for another recap of the week that was. See you then, pilgrim!

If ones uses a capacitive stylus on their iOS device - those pseudo-pens that are great for handwriting, sketching, typing, and just tapping - the name Ten One Design may not be familiar but it’s very likely they've come across their Pogo stylus line.

This month the iOS accessories company released news that should make iPad artists and note-takers smile. Temporarily dubbed the Blue Tiger Stylus, it’s something completely different. It uses Bluetooth 4.0 to pair with the iPad, particularly the new one. The result is direct input not from the screen, but from another gadget, which allows for much more user control.

The Blue Tiger won’t simulate pressure; it will react to it with genuine sensitivity and be better than traditional styluses (styli?) at distinguishing between intended strokes and palm prints. The killer feature is best described by Ten One founder Peter Skinner: “When using Blue Tiger in a drawing application, the user can control stroke thickness ... which is displayed on the multi-colored LED button.” There’s no word on a release date or price, but if it’s durable it will be well worth paying a premium for, as it should outlast traditional styluses with inflated rubbery nibs.

California’s famed J. Paul Getty Museum houses one of the great collections of Greco-Roman and Etruscan art in its Palisades' Villa and a vast array of objects d'art from the middle ages to the present day at the Getty Center in Brentwood.

Created in conjunction with their new exhibition The Life of Art: Context, Collecting, and Display, which opened last week at the Getty Center, the companion Life of Art app offers users an in-depth look at curator's criteria using four gorgeous examples: a lidded bowl, a silver fountain, a side chair, and a wall light.

The introduction explains the instalment and app’s intention. “From the time an object is made until the day it enters a museum’s collection, a work of art may be displayed, used, and perceived in different ways.” The app uses the included samples to illustrate the point.

Tapping on any of the four decadently beautiful examples gives users detailed information on on the object's journey by discussing the style, use, history and detailing. The objects are presented in a rich 360 degree view and a tap on a specific area prompts the app to show that area up close with detailed information, factoids, additional images, even flaws.

For the would-be curator, museum lover, or as a companion to an actual visit, The Getty’s new app offers a beautiful interactive selection of The Life of Art exhibition.

Tate Gallery, developers of Tate Trumps, has released Race Against Time for iOS. The game features the evil Dr. Greyscale who has stolen the world's color. Yes, it's basically the end for us in 2012, especially without our colorful colors. But fear not as gamers can guide a quirky little chameleon throughout the game to stop the evil Dr. Greyscale from turning the world into a lifeless monochrome void.

The user plays as the chameleon, traveling through the history of modern art in order to defeat evil Dr Greyscale’s plan to remove all the color from the world. As the gamer races through time from 1890 back to the present day, the background, platforms and enemies change to reflect major art movements and works from the last 121 years of modern art. The company's aim is to introduce the iOS crowds to new ways of discovering art. Race Against Time is one of a series of apps that Britain’s most famous art institution has commissioned and will be releasing over the next few months.