QuickAdvice: Artist’s Touch Allows Anyone To Be An Artist
Artist's Touch for iPhone ($2.99) by Artamata, Inc. brings art to the masses. You don’t need any artistic training or skills to create the look of a painting from any photo. Artist’s Touch for iPhone or Artist’s Touch for iPad does all the work for you.
First choose your photo. The app immediately creates a blueprint, which you can leave on or turn off while you work. Either way, it won’t be visible in the finished product; it’s simply a guide for painting.
The top center icon brings up the Brush menu. Choose your tool of choice: pencil, pen, scratch board, airbrush, pastel, chalk, charcoal, or watercolor. Then, tap the lifted edge of the canvas to choose what sort of texture you’d like: canvas, brick, cracked paint, rough paper, mosaic, or stone. You can use the colors already in your photo, or change to a monochrome look by tapping the color wheel.
Start swiping the screen, and your blueprint will become a painting according to parameters you’ve set. Tap the tool icon to bring up a menu that includes undo, clear painting, export to photos, share (via email or twitter), tutorial, or customer service.
You’ll want to check out the short tutorial, but the big tip is to start your painting with a large brush size. Then, go back over detailed areas, such as faces, with a smaller brush size to bring out more detail. Repeat this with smaller and smaller brush sizes until you’re content with the amount of detail in your painting.
That’s all there is to it! This app is fun to use and makes it easy to experiment with different styles of art and different looks. I tested it out on both the iPad and the iPhone. The horizontal and square pictures (of the boy) in this article were created with the iPad version; the vertical pictures (of the flowers) were done on the iPhone. Today’s major update to the iPhone app was a total redesign and brought it up to the iPad app’s level. If the app sounds intriguing to you, then you’ll be sure to enjoy it. It’s fun for kids and adults alike.
