Last week I took a week off work to consider where we were going to head with our little business. July and August are usually our toughest months when it is too hot in Europe and it is too lethargic (not cold) in Australia for anyone to make choices about their fashion. There was a week about two weeks ago where we received not one enquiry from the website which is a very very rare thing. I looked through the stats to wonder where all our customers had gone and it was interesting to note that since the business began on the web, the historicals showed July and August to be the big dippers in web traffic. My assumption, given that we make luxury bow ties for sophisticated types, is that they are sipping Campari and blood oranges somewhere in the south of France wearing a pair of driving shoes and a Sunspel collared t-shirt. I could be wrong. I could be right.
Regardless, the time off was a God send. I swam most days last week in the pool at Cook + Phillip, backed up my data on my computer, tidied up my stock, took a trip down to the Snowy Mountains and, most importantly, I downloaded Procreate.
Procreate was a lucky find I saw on my new iPad mini app store. I downloaded it expecting another crapola app but I gave it a chance because it had won some awards. However, once I opened the programme up I was shocked by how clever and intuitive it was. I was suddenly at the helm of an easel like some master painter with every conceivable tool at my finger tips. I am quite surprised that my results are not more enthralling because I certainly felt as I worked my fingers that I was on the cusp of some ground breaking material. If you have a creative urge, I highly recommend you give this app a whirl. For the price of two cups of coffee it will rock your world.
So that you don't think I am more clever than I am, I will tell you that I created this self-portrait by firstly importing an image taken of myself by photographer Magnus Omme, then I sketched around that image using the tracing pencil tool and then I began to use a combination of 'shading graphite', inking, painting and airbrush tools.
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| Self-Portrait, A Man And His Bow Tie , 2013 - Using Procreate App |
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