Brushes iPad video to Blogger via YouTube - April garden in Cheshire

You can compare this video of a sketch done using a stylus and the Brushes app on my iPad with my last post about my pen and ink and coloured pencil sketch of The magnolia in April.

April Garden in Cheshire
sketch created on iPad using Brushes app and Griffin stylus
copyright Katherine Tyrrell - all rights reserved

This time I developed the sketches alongside one another (they were developed over a couple of mornings because of the way light moves in the early morning).

This time I was making a conscious effort to use the stylus more like I use a pen or pencil rather than pastels.  At the moment I think I prefer the pastels mode - but suspect this is probably more about me needing to get to grips with the different brushes and ways in which these can be adjusted!

You'll be able to tell from the video below that I do tend to take the "wprk all over" approach to a bit of an extreme!



How I got my Brushes actions movie from the iPad to YouTube to Blogger

I'm going to write down how I got my the sketching actions in the Brushes app off my iPad and to this blog post via YouTube

1. Apple iPad - Click share icon in gallery view
2. Apple iPad - Mail actions to one of my email addresses
3. Googlemail - save the gz file associated with the "Brushes Painting Actions" email to my Brushes folder in my Movies folder on my iMac (Note: .gz is the file extension for gzip files created using GNU zip, an open source file compression program)
4. Open the 'gzip' file on my Apple iMac and save the gz file to the same folder
5. After forgetting that gz files can't be read by just any old video software, open Brushes Viewer (previously downloaded to my Apple iMac)
6. check that the file works in animated form in Brushes Viewer
7. export the file to from gz to my hard disc on my my Apple iMac
8. try to upload the file to Flickr (except it's too long and the .mov extension is not recognised!)
9. export the file again(!) - this time saving it as MPEG-4 video and giving it a real name (this one was saved at 1024x768 pixels at medium quality)
10. I now have a file called aprilgarden.mov which is 354.1 MB
11. Flickr limits movies to 90 seconds so this one needs to be uploaded to YouTube
12. Open YouTube account and upload file - it takes about 50 minutes on a good connection
13. Wait for the file to be processed - another few minutes
14. Go to unique URL for video
15. Create the share code for the the video via embed mode 
16. Post embed code to this blog post!

If anybody has an improved way of getting videos of iPad sketches on to a blog post I'd love for you to share!

Something else I learned from the manual.  Worth keeping in mind for the future!

If your painting has many strokes, exporting a movie may take some time, and the resulting file may be quite large (depending on the settings).

Walking is still a problem

I'm getting very fed up of being confined to home while I wait for my foot to improve.  The problem is....that it isn't.  While vaguely better, it's a very long way from being OK.  This week I tried a slightly longer walk to see if stretching it might help.

It involved very slow walking and stretching the foot as I went - plus a couple of sit downs and a sketch.  Plus an awful lot of tension because I forget to breathe when I'm walking but think I'm going to fall over any second!  It's as if I'm continuously on the sharp inward yelp which occurs when in pain while forgetting to breathe out.  Almost as if I'm balancing on a tightrope with every stpe.  Very wearing.........

Anenomes in Bow
pen and ink and coloured pencils, 10 x 8" in Large Moleskine sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Anyway, these are those rather nice dusky purple pink anenomes which never ever come out the right colour when you photograph them - which is a good reason for sketching them!

Wet evening at Burlington House

Wet evening at Burlington House
sketched from the leather sofas of the Friends Room, Royal Academy of Arts
Brushes iPad app and iPad
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

This is my very first digital sketch on my brand new iPad.  It's the direct result of learning how to use Brushes - with no manual or instruction - while sat on the leather sofas in the Friends Room at the Royal Academy.

I was quite pleased to end up with ANYTHING which looked remotely like a drawing!  However I can now see the potential of the iPad as a sketchbook and will be doing this again.  Although I might practice a bit more first!

It's a bit of an odd sketch since it has the capacious and comfortable black leather sofa under the window at the bottom and then the wet courtyard of Burlington House out the window behind.

Two elderly ladies watched me while they had their cup of tea and came up and asked me about it before they left.  They were very intrigued and absolutely loved the way the picture swivels when I turned it towards them.

Anyway - what do you think?  Any good?

I had a little bit of a fright as I left the RA and walked out under the archway to Piccadilly.  There was police incident tape absolutely everywhere.  It turned out that there was a "suspect vehicle" (which in London is code for "suspect bomb") parked not very far away and the Police had closed down the whole of Piccadilly.  It's a long time since a policeman has said to me "I wouldn't look that way" as I turned around to peer and see where it was.  Realising that white van man had parked a bit too close for comfort I scurried away to the tube - all the while doing mental calculations about the value of the artwork currently residing in the exhibition galleries inside Burlington House!